Man Out of Time
by saichick-Anna-Erishkigal
Summary: Cast forward in time 67 years to babysit a group of oversized superhero egos, Steve Rogers struggles to adapt to a world which has moved on without him. But an old friend comes back into his life with a bit of sage advice for dealing with a world that really hasn't changed ... and to introduce him to a woman who can fill that aching void in his heart.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimers:__ Steve Rogers, Captain America, and the Avengers all belong to Marvel. The rest belongs to and is copyrighted to me. I write for my own pleasure and enjoyment, not for monetary gain. Copyright © 2012 Anna Erishkigal._

Man Out of Time

"We found her," Nick Fury said.

Steve Rogers paused, staring at the punching bag he'd just duct-taped back together for another round. The dim lighting of the dilapidated old gymnasium he'd purchased with sixty-six years of back pay hid his expression as he avoided looking up to see the sympathy he knew would be shining out of Nick Fury's one good eye. The musty scent of old leather and a centuries worth of dried sweat settled around him like a comfortable old blanket, the one familiar thing which had endured the three quarters of a century he'd spent frozen in a block of ice. Her. He didn't need to ask to whom Nick Fury referred.

"What cemetery?" Steve asked, staring at the worn rawhide lacing of his gloves.

He earned enough money as a superhero, especially a superhero as visible as the Avengers since ending Loki's murderous rampage a few weeks ago, to buy an entire factory full of state-of-the-art boxing gloves, but for some reason, only worn leather gloves broken in by decades of middleweight boxers ever felt right upon his fists. Back in the day … back when he'd still been a _real _Captain in the Army and not just some old showpiece the Avengers dug out of the mothballs to play referee whenever they needed someone to babysit the oversized egos that were the Avengers, even the _best _soldiers had used the same gloves used by everybody else. Rationing. Food coupons. Victory gardens. Recycling. Every man doing what they could and making sacrifices for the war effort. Nowadays, the war they fought spanned the galaxy, not just Earth, but the only thing the government wanted to recycle was _him, _a soldier who, for all intents and purposes, _should _have stayed dead.

Nick Fury paused, the low rumble in his throat not one of anger, but a man suffering from a loss of words. A rare occurrence with Fury, who only had two tones of voice. Threatening growl. Or shouting. Steve looked up, his clear, blue eyes clouded with emotion. His shoulders slumped as though he were Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"She's alive," Fury said. His cheek twitched, indicating that wasn't _all _there was to the story.

"You told me she was dead," Steve said, his tone of voice deliberate and even as he clamped down upon the errant thrill of hope. "You told me she died after the war and never married."

Nick Fury stared without speaking, only the slight twitch of a single muscle in his razor-stubbled cheek giving him away. Fury's tell. Nick Fury was good at playing a hard ass, but Steve had been around too many four-star generals in his tenure, no, make that _former _tenure as front-man against the Third Reich, to buy it. Patton. MacArthur. De Gaulle. Marshall. Even brave Kruschev, who he'd been surprised to learn had been rewritten from allied field commander to communist villain during the time he'd been asleep.

"The Army never bothered keeping track of her once the war ended," Fury said, an expression that might be remorse, or simply frustration. "The women … they dismissed them from the WACS and the factories the minute the war was over and sent them home to have babies. It was a different world back then."

Steve punched the bag, his shoulders tense as he tightened his fist inside the worn old gloves, the leather cracked from years of abuse, and focused on the reassuring feel of the flat of his knuckles hitting the sand-laden bag. Fury wouldn't deliberately lie to him, but he had an infuriating habit of withholding information when he didn't want to tell the truth. Why had Fury lied about Peggy Lawton? Or was he lying about her now?

"She'd be … what?" Steve asked. "Ninety-two years old?"

"Ninety-four," Fury said. "She just turned ninety-four three months ago. She was a couple of years older than you to start with."

Ninety-four. Was such a thing even possible? Even now, in this day and age where things he'd once believed to be impossible were everyday occurrences, the lifespan people could aspire to amazed him. Two-way television phones you could carry in your pocket? Boxes that cooked your meals in two minutes or less? Jet airplanes that flew themselves almost entirely by computer. The unearthly technology possessed by Red Skull had been awesome, but it was still the _little _things mankind had achieved on its own which made Steve want to crawl inside his musty old gymnasium and never see the light of day.

"Is she … does she …"

Steve trailed off. The last person from his own time he'd dug up, an old World War 2 veteran still alive from the Great War, had suffered from dementia. He'd remembered Steve, all right. The old war vet had remembered every detail about storming Red Skull's fortress with him and his long-deceased sidekick Bucky Barnes. But everything else the old vet remembered had been dicey. The old warhorse remembered Steve, but he couldn't even remember his own son.

"She's failing fast," Fury said as though reading his thoughts. "But her mind is still pretty good. A bit forgetful. But she remembers _you._"

"How'd you find her?" Steve asked.

Nick shifted his stance, the movement causing the long tails of the full-length leather coat he liked to wear to flap as though it were some superhero cape. Superheroes! What a joke!

"We didn't," Nick said, the twitching in his cheek tipping Steve off there was more to the story he wasn't going to tell. "She found us. She saw you on the television after the Loki incident and went through some old channels to see if it was really you."

"I never showed my face," Steve said. "For all she knows, I'm just a copycat to make people feel secure."

What he _didn't _add was that they could _all _use a little security right now. Especially him. While America and the world looked to the Avengers to be their security blankets, Steve knew firsthand how deeply flawed they all were. Christ! They looked to _him _to lead them! A human with no special powers other than the millennium serum had made him stronger and faster than most other humans. It hadn't made him a billionaire genius. Or a god. Or a big green monster. It hadn't done anything except make him just a little bit more of what he had already been when Dr. Erskine had injected him.

"Her son said she _insisted _she knew you," Fury said. "They feared the old biddy would drop dead of a heart attack when she saw you on the television. They thought she'd finally gone senile. He finally got ahold of one of her old colleagues who recently retired from Stark Industries. The old guy still had enough contacts inside the company to get Pepper Potts to believe it was _the _Peggy Carter who'd once run interference for Tony's father."

"Her son?" Steve asked. His arms dropped along his sides, letting out a long, defeated breath. "Of course. She … um … her son."

He'd been believed dead. Peggy had to live her life while Steve had been frozen in a block of ice. To mourn his loss. To grieve. To live each day until it had finally become bearable, just as _he'd _had to keep putting one foot in front of the other each day after Red Skull had killed Bucky. For Peggy, it had been more than sixty-five years since his plane had gone down in the artic. Of _course _she'd moved on with her life. But for him? For him, it had only been months! How could he tell his heart, which screamed for her betrayal, that he was _glad _she hadn't moved through the remainder of her life with that empty feeling in his chest that _he _felt? Steve punched the bag, the flat thunk of a padded fist hitting a sand-filled leather bag echoing in the empty gym.

"Damn…"

Nick stepped forward, his arm outstretched with a slip of paper in it.

"You don't have a lot of time," Nick said. "Her son said she's fading fast. You might want to go over to see her sooner rather than later."

"Thanks," Steve muttered, staring down at the slip of paper Nick had placed into his hand. On it was a name that was eerily familiar. Abraham S. Miller. Abraham had been Dr. Erskine's first name. The 'S' in the middle? Steve had his suspicions. If only … they'd never … no. Steve sighed. No … they'd never been given that opportunity, though he _had _intended to ask her to marry him as soon as he'd completed that last mission. Had her husband been aware she'd named their son after the two men Peggy had admired most in the world?

Nick placed a hand on his shoulder, the sympathy in his dark brown eyes a stark contrast to the black patch which always made him look like he was about to go off on a murderous rampage, a look Nick favored.

"At least you'll have a chance to say goodbye," Fury said.

He whirled, the tails of his long leather trench coat slapping together like demon wings, and strode out of the gymnasium without another word. Steve stood there, staring at the name scratched into the slip of paper and a phone number with far too many digits than should be necessary to simply dial an old friend. Five numbers. Were there really so many people now living in the world that it was necessary to have ten digits in a phone number instead of the five he had grown up with? Even calling an old friend had become twice as hard as it had been in his own time and age.

Dust floated in the air, looking like tiny bursts of starlight shining in the sunlight streaming through the skylight in the ceiling of the ancient gym. Starlight. Another idea he had to get used to in this strange day and age where mankind travelled to the stars. Or at least the moon. But here, here in this ancient gym, he could pretend sixty-six years of his life hadn't simply vanished into a block of ice. Or Peggy Carter … the woman he had loved and never had a chance to tell until the day his plane had gone down.

He slipped the paper into his back pocket, a task to be attended to later, after he'd worked through some of the turmoil tearing through his gut. There was a _reason _he'd been put in charge of the others. Unlike Tony Stark, Steve Rogers liked to _think _before he acted. Tightening the laces on his musty leather gloves, he began to pound the duct tape off the old punching bag he'd just taped back together until it began to disintegrate. Just like everything else he had once loved had simple disintegrated in the anvil of time.

O

_Note: Hit the little blue button on your way out the door and drop me a line about your thoughts. This is the first chapter of many and I –do- so like hearing from readers!_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The 1938 Indian Chief rumbled to life with a kick of his heel, the throaty bass of its powerful engine reassuring beneath his thighs as it out into the Lower East Side traffic. The blue-and-grey motorcycle was a relic, like him. The dream bike his Irish-immigrant parents could only have dreamed of him someday owning, although they had both died so young Steve had hardly gotten to know them.

At least traffic hadn't changed all that much in the time he'd been asleep, though there was certainly a lot more of it now. The increase in volume was offset by the fact it barely moved, enabling him to weave in and out of stopped cars like a ribbon being braided into a pretty girls' hair. Narrowly missing a car door unexpectedly opened in the middle of the gridlocked Holland tunnel, Steve kicked the clutch and shifted gears using the 'suicide shift' located next to the gas tank to maneuver without braking. No matter how much things changed, some things always remained the same. Like idiot drivers!

He wore aviation sunglasses instead of the goggles he'd worn back in 1944. The helmet upon his head was hard resin rather than the soft leather worn during World War II, but the feel of the wind caressing his cheeks had changed little in the time he'd been asleep. The briny scent of the Meadowlands was so thick it was nearly palpable, though less so than it would be mid-summer when sun increased the rate of decay. Stark had built him an enhanced super-helmet with its own AI, but the full-faced wind-guard had left Steve gasping for air. They'd finally compromised by building a radio into his helmet that, for the most part, remained silent. Just in case they needed to reach him.

Plunking a handful of coins into the tollbooth to exit the Jersey Turnpike, Steve wound along the nameless river, the scent of the salt marsh fading the further he travelled inland. He forced his mind to focus on the sun, the curve of the road, the Indian throbbing reassuringly into his crotch as he drove. Years of self-discipline taught to him by the military helped him subdue the butterflies threatening to erupt out of his stomach as either vomit, or tears. Ninety-four years old. Peggy Carter was ninety-four years old. _Really _ninety-four years old. Not just twenty-five with a sixty-seven year gap like he had, but _old_.

"Somerset Valley Rehabilitation Center," Steve read aloud, staring at the white-and-green sign with apprehension. Squat, low buildings stretched across pleasant, neatly tended grounds. He guided the bike into a parking spot, though it wasn't difficult to find one in the nearly empty lot, and kicked down the kickstand. The engine fell silent as he stared at the place Peggy had been sent to die. He sat, squeezing the brakes on the handlebar in and out as he tried to pull himself together.

Ninety-four years old. Peggy's son had reassured him his mother was still pretty sharp for a ninety-four year old woman, but warned she'd gotten forgetful the past few years. Sometimes she mistook her grandchildren for friends who were long dead and in the grave. Had he really made enough of an impression upon her all those years ago that she'd remember _him_? The scrawny Irish kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who'd thrown his body across a dud grenade and not the image of Captain America the military had fostered to sell war bonds?

The lobby of the nursing home seemed homey enough, with a fireplace and powder-blue walls as though it were a living room in a private home. The scent of old-people mixed with urine, however, was unmistakable. Death. A place people were sent to die when they became too much of a burden on their loved ones. He'd been spared that unpleasantness with his _own _parents by their untimely deaths, but that just meant when his own time came to sit in a wheelchair and soil his britches there'd be nobody left alive to visit him. Empty. The nursing home was empty except for elderly patients left staring vacantly at the wall. A perky woman wearing white nursing shoes shuffled from patient to patient, sniffing to make sure nobody needed a change of Depends, but otherwise her charges were left alone with their own mortality. Steve followed signs down a long, featureless yellow hall to the nursing station.

"I'm here to see Peggy Carter … um … Miller," Steve said to the middle-aged African-American woman seated behind the station. She was dressed in street clothing, not a nurse's uniform, but her business-like demeanor and the badge clipped to her chest stated she was an LPN.

"All the way down this hallway," the nurse said, her expression possessing the infinite tolerance learned by those who cared for the elderly. "Take a left, go down to the end, take a right, and look for room B-112."

"Thanks, Ma'am," Steve said. He resisted the urge to salute her. Despite her lack of a uniform, the woman oozed authority.

He squared his shoulders and moved in the direction she had said, resisting the urge to cringe as cries came out of one of the open doors. Nobody moved to comfort the weeping woman, but a patient across the hall shouted 'shut up!' and slammed shut their door. B-wing. He counted room numbers as he passed Room 106, 108, 110. He paused in front of the non-descript door marked 112, nothing except the placard with two names on it differentiating it from any other door in this facility. He paused to compose his emotions. Goldstein. And Miller. A shared room.

The door swung open. An enormous brown artists' portfolio hit him square in the chest, his arm flying up just in time to prevent it from hitting him in the face. Brown eyes stared up into his. A surprised squeak escaped perfect lips that had been etched into his memory, so many times had he longed to kiss them.

"P-p-peggy?" Steve stammered.

"Oh!"

The portfolio slid from her arms, spewing its contents all over the nursing home floor. He bent to help her pick them up and banged heads as she bent down at the same time. The woman gave a cry of dismay as an errant gust of wind from an exterior door caused the pictures to slide across the grey-and-white tiles. The sketches were followed a millisecond later by the contents of her purse as it slipped her grasp and dumped out. Pencils rolled everywhere, the tiny sticks artificially loud in the quiet corridor. The woman scrambled to gather them up before they were stepped on by a passing patient.

"I'm sorry," Steve said, scrutinizing the woman who'd just exited Peggy's room. "I should have knocked."

The eyes and lips were Peggy's, but her long, jet-black was unlike Peggy's wavy chestnut brown. Her figure was also less curvaceous than Peggy's had been, but still shapely. Her daughter?

"Oh … that's okay," the woman said. Her lips curved into a smile that took his breath away so closely did it mirror that of her mother. "I was just … I should have looked where I was walking."

She gathered sketches of naked men posed in typical art school model poses, yanking one out of the pathway of an elderly man shuffling down the hall with his walker. She exchanged pleasantries with the man, deliberately avoiding Steve's eyes as she stuffed the pictures back into her portfolio. Steve kneeled beside her and gathered her pencils as she queried the elderly patient about his game of Pokeno and his romantic gestures towards a certain Mrs. Schneider. Perfect white teeth flashed a brilliant smile as she forgot he was there.

Steve's chest hurt. He resisted the urge to reach out and give the young woman the kiss he'd never had the chance to give her mother. His heart beat so loudly it felt like it was beating in his ears. This was not Peggy. This must be her daughter … no … impossible … too many years had passed. This would be the granddaughter who would have been _his _granddaughter had fate not intervened and placed sixty-seven years between him and Peggy Carter, the woman he had intended to marry. The old man bid them farewell and continued his shuffle down the hall.

"Mrs. Goldstein has gone down to the dining room already," the woman said, her expression grateful as Steve handed her back her pencils. "It's meatloaf tonight. Not too bad if you add lots of salt. And pepper. And maybe a little hot sauce. Actually … the meatloaf is pretty bad. Maybe you'll just want to get something out of the vending machine." She flashed a friendly smile that would have lit up the Empire State building.

"I'm here to see Peggy," Steve said. "I'm an old friend."

Confusion flashed across the young woman's eyes as she looked at him, then down the hallway behind him to see if there was somebody else with him. She tucked her enormous artists' portfolio under her arm, artwork hanging precariously from the edges which had yet to be zipped shut to protect its contents.

"She said … um ... shouldn't you be a little older?" she asked, her voice lilting upwards as the top-secret question he couldn't answer hung between them. She jutted out her chin, a bit more rounded than Peggy's heart-shaped jaw, but every bit as determined.

"I look young for my age," Steve said, rising and extending his hand to help her back to her feet. "I'm Steve. Steve Rogers. I knew your mother … uh … grandmother … when she was … um …"

He trailed off. With all of his family and friends dead, this was the first time he'd had to concoct a cover story explaining how he knew someone from World War II when his physical body was still only twenty-five years old. Peggy's son had made a comment about he sounded young for his age when he'd called to set up today's visit. They were expecting another World War 2 veteran, not a young man. He should have given the matter more thought.

The woman's head tilted to one side, her eyes raking his body from his cropped blonde hair to his chino khaki's. He was _dressed _like a World War 2 veteran, never having quite adjusted to the tight fit of blue jeans now favored by men his age. Right down to his combat-style boots even though he wasn't in uniform. Not that they even _made _uniforms anymore like he'd worn back when he and Peggy had been … friends.

Steve could practically _see _her trained artists' eyes taking in every detail of his appearance, burning it into memory for some later sketch. He'd once been an art student himself, back when he'd gone to every Army enlistment station in New York City trying to get them to accept his scrawny, 90-pound rear end to go fight the Jerries. Peggy had been far too practical to be an artist, herself, but her smile the day he'd given her a sketch of herself standing in front of a map of Europe, snapping orders as though _she _were the general instead of Douglas MacArther, had made his heart melt. This woman's eyes were brown, like Peggy's, but the pink mortification which crept into her cheeks as she realized Steve had caught her checking him out was a humility the brazen Peggy had not possessed. She recovered from her momentary disadvantage and stuck out her hand.

"I'm Bernice," the woman said, her grip less sure of itself than Peggy's had been back when she'd run interference between the military and Howard Stark. "Bernice Rosenthal. Peggy's great-granddaughter. I was just … um … leaving."

"It's nice to meet you, Bernice," Steve said, her resemblance to Peggy causing his hand to linger instead of automatically releasing the handshake. "I … um … I believe I'm expected?"

"Yes," Bernice said, the expression of confusion clouding her face once more. "Though … I think grandma was expecting … um … well she'll be glad you came to visit. For some reason she thought you were the same guy she used to work with back when … um? Kinda crazy, huh? Like you would have been able to knock out those aliens with your shield if … um … well anyways she'll be glad Howard Stark's son thought enough of her to send _somebody _out here to speak to her."

Steve avoided blurting out that he really _was _the person Peggy was expecting. Her family had assumed he'd be a geriatric old man. His real identity was classified, as was his real age. Only Peggy and a few aging war veterans were still alive to know otherwise. Bernice stood there, her fingers twirling one of her pencils as though it were itching to take flight across a blank sheet of paper.

"Your grandmother was the most formidable women I ever met," Steve said, choosing a middle ground that would tell the truth without betraying secrets S.H.I.E.L.D. deemed too classified to reveal. "It's an honor to finally be able to see her again."

Whatever thought crossed the young woman's mind, she didn't speak it. An elderly woman called her name from further down the hall, inviting her to visit on her way out. Bernice was obviously a regular visitor here and had ingratiated herself to the nursing homes failing residents. Bernice smiled and tugged her hand from the handshake he'd never released, pointing towards the doorway she'd just exited.

"Grandma's really looking forward to seeing you," Bernice said. "She gets more visitors than the rest of these guys, but it's still not a lot of company. No matter _who _you really are, she'll be glad you came."

Before he could say another word, the young woman clutched her portfolio to her chest and hurried down the hall, calling out greetings to the nursing home's various residents as she made her way out of the building. She walked not with the purposeful stride of a woman needing to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner possible in order to carry out some important mission as Peggy had, but the gait of a young woman who enjoyed pausing to smell each flower that graced her path. An artist's walk.

The long, black hair that trailed down her disappearing back was too dark and straight to be natural, the color of an Asian woman even though she possessed no Asiatic features. Dyed? She wore black boots reminiscent of his own combat boots, tight jeans with artfully placed rips he'd learned were the latest fashion, and a snug-fitting black knit shirt which showed off her slender figure which was not as curvaceous as her grandmothers had once been. A few years younger, he estimated, than Peggy had been at the time he'd met her. Twenty-one? Twenty-two? One of the pieces of paper which had slipped out of her portfolio had been a syllabus from the School of Visual Arts.

Staring at the door he'd come to walk through, Steve Rogers knocked and prepared to go inside.

X

_Note: Bernie Rosenthal was Captain America's love interest in the 1980's Marvel Comics reboot. As portrayed there, she was a law student and glass-blowing artist and no relation to Peggy. Marvel decided she was too ordinary and moved on to more convoluted characters (Sharon Carter - Peggy's niece who was eventually co-opted by Red Skull; and Diamondback - another morally questionable assassin). Given Steve's 'origins' character … an ordinary guy who wants to do what's right … I feel he would be attracted to a non-super woman who possesses the best traits of both Peggy and–himself- (Steve Rogers was a fine art student when he was inducted into the Army). The kind of person Steve joined the war effort to defend in the first place, not another inflated super-ego like he's got up the wazoo since joining the Avengers. The old-fashioned WWII guy who found Peggy just 'liberated' enough to be intriguing but hates bullies would be turned off by a gun-toting super-agent. Since I have only been able to dig up a rudimentary plot synopsis of the old comics featuring Bernie Rosenthal, my Bernice has very little to do with the 1980 version other than her name and love of art. I decided not to make Bernice a law student as –I- am an attorney and that would just be a little too Mary-Sue! I write fiction to get –away- from my day job!_

_Thanks for reading! Don't forget to hit the blue button on the way out and drop me a line!_


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks to all the kind readers who have read this story so far and also those who reviewed, including __**Melibells, LazyNezumi, Bellarase, and M.H. .R. **__I've responded in person where I could or, if I didn't respond, it's because you have your private messaging blocked. Reader reviews are what keeps fanfiction writers writing! _

_ X_

Chapter 3

"Come in!"

The voice which warbled through the door was a wispy ghost of its former self, but it still gave Steve goose bumps just to hear it. Peggy's voice. The last memory he had of her, her voice, as she'd told him 'yes' over the radio just before his plane had gone down in the artic. Yes. She had told him yes. Had she understood he was asking her for more than a dance?

Steve pushed through the door, one hand in his pocket as he fingered the small box Howard Stark had put in with his personal effects when they'd packed up the tiny locker which had been all he'd owned in the world. Howard and Peggy had been close … or about as close as any two colleagues could be with Peggy forever fending off Howard's brazen advances. It was eerie, how much Tony Stark's relationship with Pepper Potts mirrored the father's relationship with Peggy Carter, although Peggy had married someone else. Steve hadn't dared ask if Howard's advances on Peggy had finally succeeded. Perhaps _that _was the reason she'd been cast aside and forgotten as soon as the war was over?

"Peggy?" he asked, his voice choking up as he entered the room and noted the walls were painted the same ubiquitous yellow as the rest of the facility. Two hospital beds sat side-by-side, a curtain between them that was pulled halfway shut so someone could nap and not see the face of the person sleeping next to them, but still see their feet. He stepped further into the room to see the ancient woman seated next to the window.

"Steve," said the old woman who bore no resemblance to the Peggy he had once known. Her face was a wrinkled old prune, dotted with liver-spots from too much time in the sun back before they'd known about things like skin cancer and solar radiation. The old woman adjusted coke-bottle glasses and peered at him, gesturing for him to come closer. "Please. Sit."

A radio played softly in the background, modern versions of the big band tunes they had both listened to back when they'd walked in the same period of history. Steve searched her face, desperate to find some familiarity with the wizened woman seated in a reclining chair before the window, her snow white hair neatly curled into the 'set' so many women from her generation preferred. He found nothing familiar in the face that stared back at him. Nothing at all. Even her distinctive heart-shaped jaw had disappeared under 94 years of wrinkles.

"Peggy," he said again, not knowing what else to say. His hands left his pocket, the tiny box abandoned along with the last hope he'd nurtured that somehow he'd be able to resurrect the Peggy he'd once known, just as _he'd _been resurrected from a 67-year sleep. While Steve had slumbered beneath the ice, Peggy had gone on to live her life, evidence of her adventures proudly displayed on every wall, bureau, and windowsill in the form of pictures of her family. A family she'd gone on to create after _he _had failed to come back and ask the question he'd been too cowardly to ask while he'd still had the chance.

"I was afraid you wouldn't come," Peggy said, her voice a whisper. That, at least, was familiar to him, although age had weakened it. Made it wispy and thin, not the brassy, self-assured bugle call it had been back when they'd moved together in time. She inhaled, pulling a clear oxygen-mask to her face to take a breath before self-consciously hiding it next to her legs, ashamed to have him see her weakness. She reached up, waiting for him to give her his hand. He sat down in the still-warm chair recently vacated by her grand-daughter and obliged. Her hands were trembling.

"You look…" Steve said, not sure what to say. What _could _he say to the woman he had meant to marry, but who had been left behind for time to ravage while he had remained young and strong?

"Old," Peggy finished. Her lips curved up into a smile that was familiar, although thinner and more pale than the lips he remembered. He could see a bluish cast where her lipstick ended and her face began, evidence of a body that no longer had the energy to breath completely on its own. He stared at the faint, pear-shaped red mark around her lips and nose and compared it to oxygen mask clutched in her wrinkled claw.

"But look at you," Peggy exclaimed as though he were a small boy. "Still young and handsome. Fury said you hadn't aged while you were gone. But I didn't believe him."

"You spoke to Fury?" Steve asked. Fury hadn't mentioned coming to visit Peggy. Only that a colleague had contacted Pepper Potts.

"He came to discredit me as a fraud," Peggy laughed, her laughter a delightful sound to his ears until it ended in a fit of coughing. She held up one hand and lifted the oxygen mask with her other, oxygen hissing as she breathed until she caught her breath. Peggy may be old, but she was still used to being in charge. For some reason, gasping for breath or not, Steve found this reassuring.

"Don't ever get old," Peggy said when she'd finally lowered her mask. "I always thought I'd die in one of those death-traps Howard Stark used to invent, not end up in a nursing home gasping for breath."

"I know what that feels like," Steve said softly, reaching out to touch the wrinkled hand she'd placed upon her knee. "I had asthma when you first met me, remember? I thought I was going to die when I went through boot camp. Before Erskine injected me with the serum. I was a real wimp back then."

Peggy scrutinized his expression, her eyes still brown beneath her thick glasses, although faded from the color they had once been. They were still Peggy's eyes, even though 67 years of time had added crinkles to the skin around them.

"My first memory of you is jumping on a grenade to save me," Peggy said. "Didn't matter _how _much you gasped for breath or _how _far you fell behind the other soldiers after that. Nobody else was ever going to measure up."

Steve fought back the tears which threatened to well into his eyes, shoving down the mixture of grief and joy that, even back then, Peggy _had _seen him for who he really was. Every woman in the nation had wanted Captain America, the superhero the military had plastered on posters coast-to-coast and trotted out before the cameras to urge people to buy war bonds. Only Doctor Erskine and Bucky and Peggy had ever wanted him for _him. _The scrawny asthmatic from the Lower East Side of Manhattan whose only talent was getting his ass kicked by bullies and sketching comic book characters.

They talked then. About the good old days. About the missions. About Peggy's five children. Her grand-children. Her two-dozen great-grandchildren, including Bernice, who came to visit her twice a week and showcase her art. All the things Steve had missed out on while Peggy had lived and he'd remained frozen in time. His eyes moved to a black-and-white photograph of a scrawny, blonde man holding a crate of milk bottles standing in front of a horse-drawn carriage marked 'Miller's Dairy.'

"That's my Bill," Peggy said, reaching for the picture and holding it, her eyes misty as she gazed at the picture of her long-dead husband. Her faded brown eyes stared off into some past that Steve couldn't see. "Lots of boys asked me to marry them after … after your plane went down. Big, strapping men who wanted to show me how strong they were. But only Bill reminded me enough of that skinny boy who'd jumped on top of a grenade to save a bunch of soldiers who'd never done nothing but make fun of him to give him the time of day."

"Did he make you happy?" Steve asked, staring at the man who might have been _him _had he not been lost in the sands of time.

"Yes," Peggy said, that smile that was an echo of the smile he had fallen in love with all those years before lighting up her face and, just for a moment, making the years between them fall away. "Bill was a good husband. I'm looking forward to joining him."

Silence stretched between them. A comfortable silence, for no words were adequate, or necessary, to express the distance between them or the regret each had at not having been able to walk down that path together. Their time had come, and gone, without them.

"Do you remember the last thing you asked me before your plane went down?" Peggy asked.

"Yes," Steve said, his voice cracking with emotion over the fact she even remembered.

"Every year on the anniversary of your … disappearance," Peggy whispered. "I went to the nearest café and would wait for you to come and give me that dance. Even after I married Bill."

Steve stared at his hands, afraid if he looked into her eyes the lump which was clawing at his throat would cause him to break down and cry.

"Will you give it to me now?" she asked.

"Of course," Steve said.

He helped her adjust the tubing of her oxygen mask and get to her feet, turning up the volume on the radio station. Bing Cosby's melancholy voice sang 'I'll Be Seeing You' as they moved together. Peggy leaned against him for support as she rested her cheek against his chest, listening to his heart. His arms slid around her stooped, frail form and he closed his eyes. Just for a moment, the sixty-seven years which stood between them fell away and they were back in 1945, dancing in a smoky USO hall. Dancing the dance fate had stolen from them.

The song ended. Sixty-seven years that Peggy had lived and he had not came rushing back, not even the words he had never spoken, but which both understood had existed, were enough to overcome the wheels of time. Peggy's husband awaited her on the other side of the veil which Thor called Valhalla. She was tired. Steve helped her into her bed, tucking her blankets around her neck and pushing the button to page the nurse. The nurse bustled in, rearranging Peggy's oxygen mask so she wouldn't asphyxiate in her sleep.

"I did love you, you know," Peggy mumbled as she dropped off to sleep, her words muffled by the plastic mask.

"I know," Steve said.

Kissing her on the forehead, the frail grandmother who would never be his wife, but who still meant the world to him, Steve quietly shut the door behind him so nothing would disturb his Peggy's dreams.

"I'll come back this time," he said. "I promise."

X

_Thanks for reading! Don't forget to hit the blue button and tell me what you think! Reader reviews keep fanfiction writers writing your favorite stories! There's another chapter in the works._


	4. Chapter 4

_A switch of viewpoint into our little-known Marvel character. Thanks to everyone who's read this so far and those who reviewed, especially __**Titanium A, JustSuzaki, Felidaes' Tale, Tante, M.H.T. of R, and **_**Sesshomaru's Babydoll**_**. **__Reviews make me smile! _

_ X_

Chapter 4

"Who's that?"

Bernice looked up from the picture she'd been bringing to life, her blue pastel pencil poised where she'd been having trouble adding just the right depth of blue to the stranger's eyes. He looked sad, but perhaps that was just the melancholy strains of BrunuhVille bleeding into her art? The gothic music was adding a wistfulness that probably hadn't existed when he'd helped her pick up her pencils and looked, just for a moment, as though she were a ghost.

"Just some friend of my grandmother's," Bernice said, trying to sound nonchalant. "At least I _think _he was an old friend. That's who he _claimed _to be."

She didn't add that her grandmother had seemed happier than she'd been in years, waiting for an old friend from the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the CIA, to visit. Grandma had always been tight-lipped about her former service as a spy, denying she'd been part of the French Resistance and donning a look akin to a Cheshire cat whenever asked about the photograph of President Roosevelt handing her a medal. Bernice had been expecting some geriatric old man with a cane, not the attractive young man coming to life upon her canvas.

"Do you think your grandma might be sweet-talked into setting me up with him?" Jacquie asked, caressing the canvas where his shirt was buttoned almost all the way up to his collar. "He's pretty hot. Even if he _is _dressed like a dork."

"Hey!" Bernice protested, pushing away her roommate's hand. "Now look what you've done! You smudged it! I haven't hit it with Krylon yet!"

"Sorry," Jacquie said, wiping the pastel that had lingered on her hand onto her pants and then frowning when it left an oily smudge. She stared at the picture, giving it a look halfway between admiration and lust. "Who is he?"

"Who knows?" Bernice said, giving her a shrug that belied the impulse which had compelled her to draw him in the first place. "Just some guy."

"Some guy, huh?" Jacquie said, giving her a knowing grin. "This is the first guy who's caught your interest since ix-nay on the Ike-May dumped your sorry ass."

Bernice looked down at her pastel-stained hands, the oil crayons bleeding into the tiny cracks in her skin. Yes. This _was _the first man who'd caught her interest since Mike had broken off their engagement. One minute he was telling her how special it would be to have a graduate of the New York School of Visual Arts as his wife, encouraging her to paint him in every pose imaginable, including many that would never see the light of day. The next thing she knew, Mike was spouting right-wing ideology and telling her he had better things to do than associate with a starving artist. That had really hurt. Only Grandma had ever encouraged her to pursue an impractical career such as art, forever wistful about an artist friend who'd been killed in the Great War.

Bernice looked up at her roommate and best friend, her hair dyed cherry-red even though she was Asian. It was a great joke amongst the other art students that her South Korean friend Jacquie, whose real name was Jae-Hwa, dyed her hair red and curled it to look American, while Bernice, who was American, straightened her hair and dyed it black.

"You going to show your grandmother?" Jacquie asked, holding both hands out in front of her and creating a little 'camera' with her fingers while she looked through the imaginary lens at the man on the canvas. She knew Bernice and her great-grandmother were pretty tight.

"Nah," Bernice said, and then changed her mind. "Maybe."

Grandma had been floating on air ever since the black man with the scary eye-patch had barged into the room, demanding to know just who she thought she was, calling in favors from names Bernice had only ever heard whispered amongst her aunts and uncles to get _somebody _to pay her some heed. With Midtown in shambles and the sudden realization they were not alone in the universe, Grandma must have rattled some very important cages to get somebody to pay attention to her ramblings about the man on the television. She hadn't been frightened of the black man one bit, but asked Bernice to run down to the kitchen and rustle up some tea and cookies. By the time Bernice had gotten back, the two had been laughing and slapping each other on the back as though they were old friends.

Perhaps the man who'd bumped into her in the hall was an old flame's grandson? If he bore any resemblance at all to the man grandma had been hoping was still alive, perhaps this picture would bring her pleasure?

"Grab that can of Krylon so I can set these colors," Bernice said, pointing at a white can of spray varnish up on a shelf next to her collection of tiny blown-glass animals. "I think I _will _bring it with me next time I go. It will give me something to show her besides sketches of naked men."

Their eyes strayed over to their portfolios, both girls taking the same 'Human Form' class this semester, and giggled. Bernice's style of art tended towards fantasy while Jacquie was a modernist, but _both _girls enjoyed sketching the models who posed nude while giddy college students sketched breasts the size of watermelons and penises that hung all the way to the floor. Bernice's cheeks flushed at the memory of her grandmother's handsome visitor eyeing her artwork and giving her a raised eyebrow as she'd gathered it from the floor.

"I dunno," Jacquie laughed. "I kinda like those naked men. I've never been in an art class so crowded as sour-puss Crowley's Human Form class!"

The girls laughed as Bernice sprayed the picture with layer after layer of clear varnish, giving a three-dimensional quality that only enhanced the sadness she'd captured in his eyes. With less than one semester to finish before she had to find a _real _job and dreams of being Mrs. Mike Farrel now as shattered, Bernice hadn't been in the mood for laughter. It felt good to laugh again.

Jacquie grabbed her portfolio and headed out for her next class, leaving Bernice alone to contemplate her masterpiece. Her hand reached up to brush the downturn of his lips and trace the shape of his strong jaw. Yes. Grandma Peggy would be pleased.

"Whoever you are," Bernice said to the man in the picture. "You made my grandmother very happy."

X

_Ahh! A glimmer of hope for two lonely people. Don't forget to hit the big blue button on your way out and let me know your thoughts. Who knows … maybe you'll find threads of your own ideas woven into my tapestry! Thanks for reading!_


	5. Chapter 5

_A change of gears here. This is an Adventure/Romance story. Time for a bit of action!_

_Thanks to everyone who's read this so far and those who reviewed, including __**Felidaes' Tale, Questionable Answers, Rozisa**__, __**Tardiswing**_ _and especially __**GhibliGirl91**__ who gave me helpful constructive criticism of a character potentially going off the rails __**. **__Reviews (even critical ones) make me smile! There's no greater honor than having your readers tell you what they think so you can improve your craft!_

_ X_

Chapter 5

"The rumors are true," Nick Fury shouted, the rumble of the C-130 Hercules nearly drowning out his words. "Some Chitauri survived Iron Man's destruction of the mother ship and are attempting to regroup on Earth."

The Chitauri were the race of lizard-like aliens who had supported Loki's attempt to subjugate Earth, engineered by a mysterious hooded figure known only as 'The Other.'

"Where are we headed, Sir?" Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye asked. He grabbed at one of the wrist-straps hanging from a bar on the ceiling as turbulence threatened to toss him into Steve's lap.

"Micronesia," Fury said. "We're set to rendezvous with the helicarrier at eleven-hundred hours."

"Just show me where the new mother ship is," Tony Stark said, flashing Steve a cocky grin. "And I'll blow it out of the sky just like the last one." He held out the gauntlet of his Iron Man suit and pretended to aim the pulse reactor at an imaginary target. The high-pitched whine of a pulse reactor charging, and then powering down without discharging, could be heard above the rumble of the engines.

Natasha Romanov didn't say a word. She glanced down at her tool belt and began to slip all manner of deadly things into her cleverly constructed clothing. Assassin's bling, she liked to call it. _All _girls liked pretty, shiny things. Black Widow's baubles just happened to be lethal.

"I still can't figure out why these ones didn't drop mindlessly to the ground when we took out the mother ship over New York," Bruce Banner said with a frown. "Every Chitauri I've autopsied appeared to be part of a hive mind."

"They're like appendages," Tony Stark said, the tiny gears in his suit whirring as he extended and then curled up the mechanical arm of his suit. "Only enough circuitry to carry signals from the CPU. Not enough to think for themselves."

"What good are soldiers who can't think?" Hawkeye asked. Natasha gave him a bemused stare. So did Tony Stark. Stark had fended off an attempt by Hammer Industries to eliminate the Iron Man prototype with computerized drones.

"Captain?" Fury said, giving Steve a one-eyed stare. "Do you care to enlighten the others?"

Steve stared at his hands. Now all of a sudden he was the resident expert on the Chitauri? It wasn't until he'd gotten a good look at the technology the seven-foot reptilian invaders had been using _after_ the showdown with Loki that he'd realized it looked familiar. Herr Klaiser. One of the Nazi bastards he'd pursued during the Great War and never been able to nail down. There had been crazy stories from traumatized French civilians about lizards devouring the brains of villagers and assuming their shapes. Stories discounted by the brass back in 1945, when Hitler was monster enough without concocting aliens from outer space to pull his strings. Steve _still _wasn't sure if what the French villagers had described was possible, but Banner's tests on the invaders and a dried tissue-sample Howard Stark had taken from a village Herr Klaiser had decimated all those years ago had similarities.

"We'd noticed some of the German soldiers would drop dead when you killed their leader," Steve said. "We thought it was some kind of Nazi mind control drug. With the Nazi war machine always hot on our tails, we never had time to stick around and do autopsies."

"Midgard is but a single branch of a mighty tree," Thor said. "Asgard has not before battled these Chitauri dogs my brother allied himself with. But Asgardians battled _many _races before we were driven back to our one true world. Including races capable of changing forms to fool the eye. My brother, Loki, is just such a creature. Although he possesses not the properties of which Commander Rogers speaks."

The other Avengers all spoke up at once, the cacophony drowning out Fury's attempts to shout over everyone and brief them about the situation. Steve looked down at his hands again, noticing the way the tendons moved reassuringly beneath the skin to animate his fingers. Predictable. He'd seen a lot of weirdness in his day, but at least Red Skull had been human. A monster, psychologically speaking, but a monster who had been amped up on the same super-serum that _he'd _been injected with. The reason Erskine had gone searching for a skinny asthmatic who understood what it meant to be the underdog rather than the strongest soldier, because Erskine knew better than anyone what it meant to be a victim of unbridled power. But this? Brain-eating, shape-shifting aliens from outer space?

Was it really any stranger than a 92-year-old man being the lynchpin of a top-secret operation involving a man in an iron suit, a not-so-jolly green giant, a Norse god, an assassin and an archer amped up on a less complete version of the _same _serum _he'd _been injected with, only with less complete results? The perfect soldier. Horse manure! Compared to the super-egos all around him, Steve was nothing but a pesky fly waiting to be swatted!

Fury whistled, restoring order at last. He turned the floor back to Steve. He was the only soldier on the planet who'd battled the Chitauri not just this generation, when they'd come in guns blazing behind Loki, but also the last, when their tactics had been more subtle. Now that they had been driven underground, it was Steve's experience they needed to hear. Not just bluster from a bunch of cocky superheroes over-confident after their stunning victory in New York.

"We learned to go after the officers," Steve said. "They're formidable soldiers. Difficult to kill, but not much different than killing a super-solider. At the time, we simply thought it was Red Skull experimenting with a variant of the super-serum he'd stolen from Doctor Erskine when he killed him."

Clint gave him a grim nod. Although S.H.I.E.L.D. had been experimenting with Doctor Erskine's super-serum for as long as it had been in existence, they had yet to replicate Doctor Erskine's success. Steve noted the subtle way Clint moved closer to Natasha, still loading her cat suit with weapons. There was something going on between those two. Steve was certain of it. But whatever their relationship was, they were keeping it discreet.

"Training _does _matter," Steve added, noting the flash of concern. In a fight between the Nazi bastards he'd battled and the two assassins, he was certain pure brute training and not just serum-enhanced reflexes would win. "The lower ranking soldiers die the same as regular humans. Easier to kill than the drones we took on in New York. But not easy. I suspect shape shifting into human form gives them our vulnerabilities."

Thor snorted. Steve gave him a cold, hard stare that communicated 'don't mess with me, big guy.'

"Either we missed a command ship," Fury said, his expression grim. "Or they've got a base somewhere on the planet and are setting us up for another invasion."

"Steve?" Natasha asked, one artfully-plucked eyebrow raised in a question. "What are we really facing?" She knew he would not speak until the squabbling superheroes shut up and showed a little decorum for the chain of command. With Natasha, on the other hand, it was all about following orders.

"We don't know _what _we're facing," Steve said. "My experience is 67 years out of date. All I know is that the officers distinguished themselves from the foot soldiers by wearing Nazi SS uniforms and helmets, while the lowest-ranking soldiers would integrate into the regular population so you couldn't tell who was one of them. I have no idea what they'll be wearing now. Or if Herr Klaiser is still pulling the strings. If he is, he'd be extremely old."

"_You're _that old," Stark said, giving Steve a wicked grin.

"Now _there's _the pot calling the kettle black," Bruce Banner said, probably the closest the emotionally reserved scientist ever came to cracking a joke.

"Says the kettle," said Stark.

"Banner!" Fury interrupted. "Your report?"

"From the uniforms we pulled off the Chitauri who invaded New York," Banner said. "It appears a system of visible rank is important to their chain of command. Chitauri with showier symbols of rank on their uniforms all possessed more highly developed cranial structures."

"Visual clues to show who's boss," Tony Stark said, patting his bright red suit with his usual cocky pride. "Something I can relate to."

The Avengers continued comparing notes about the Chitauri they had slain in New York and this new information. Steve excused himself and moved to the back of the C-130, where the _real _soldiers were busily preparing their cargo for unloading when they rendezvoused with the helicarrier so they could move onto the next mission.

"Captain," the men greeted, giving him a salute. All wore modern camouflage cargo pants and loose-fitting tops, far more comfortable and durable digs than the wool uniforms he'd worn back when he'd still moved inside the chain of command of a regular army.

Steve stared down at his garish, red-white-and-blue uniform, thankful that at least here he didn't have to wear his ridiculous winged helmet. His rank now was officially Colonel, not Captain. A fiction the military had cooked up so he'd have the rank to coordinate regular troops with the superheroes. The Avengers got all the glory, but it was the massive military machine efficiently moving in the background which quietly cleaned up after them and plugged any holes in their plans.

It had been thus since the first hominid had picked up a stick and used it to defend his brother...

"At ease…" Steve said, returning their salute. The men gave him a grateful smile and returned to their duties, glancing over at him from time to time, their expressions one of curiosity and openness.

How he missed those simpler times, when the military had made him continue pretending to be the clumsy young man who'd been sent off to Army boot camp. Sure, there'd been a few bullies. Bullies he'd had to quietly put back into their place when they pushed him too far. But most of the guys he'd served with had been just … guys. Ordinary guys trying to do what was right. He'd found the routine of the military to be reassuring, the camaraderie once he'd earned the trust of his fellow soldiers to be unlike any relationship he'd experienced before, or since. He wished, not for the first time, that he could be allowed to don a regular uniform and blend in with the enlisted troops. To simply be a small cog in an enormous set of gears powering a mighty army instead of the rallying point others looked to for inspiration. It had never occurred to him, when Doctor Erskine had approached him about testing out his serum, that becoming a better soldier would mean never being able to simply _be _the soldier he'd always dreamed of being.

Steve walked over to where his souped-up harrier jet was jammed into the belly of the plane, its' wings neatly folded upwards like a cricket so it would fit inside, and gave it an affectionate pat. The technician who was elbows-deep in grease doing its pre-flight maintenance looked up and gave him a smile.

"Is it true, Sir?" the soldier asked, "that you stole this technology from the Nazis?"

Steve glanced at the name tag Velcroed to the airman's battle fatigues. Identity. On his arm, one silver bar. Rank. On the other arm sat the airman's branch insignia, a wheel with wings. Transportation. Role. A predictable means of understanding who one was addressing, their rank, and the skills that cog in the wheel possessed so an officer could readily recruit whatever resources were at hand to complete the mission.

"Yes, Lieutenant Hernandez," Steve said, using the visual information to properly address the soldier.

Hive mind. Peggy standing in front of a map of Europe, symbols pinned all over the map showing what resources were ready to be mobilized in which location. A memory clicked in Steve's mind. Something he had observed when they'd snuck into an occupied village to extract some American GI's who'd been captured by Herr Klaiser. He'd ask Banner about it as soon as they had a quiet moment.

"I never _could _figure out why the Jews helped the people who were rounding them up and killing them to build these things," Lieutenant Hernandez said. "If it was me…"

"If it was you," Steve interrupted. "You would have done the exact same thing the Jewish scientists did. The Nazi's had their families. It was either the death camps or drag your feet and hope the Allies got their act together before there was nothing left for them to sabotage."

Steve's mind jumped back to Doctor Erskine. If Erskine hadn't escaped and made his way to Allied territory, the war might have turned out differently. _He _would have turned out differently. Doctor Erskine had understood it wasn't what one blustered openly to the public, but what one quietly did when faced with unimaginable choices that made the true measure of a man.

"Always wondered why it took the German war machine so long to solve technical problems we solved in a matter of months once the war was over," Lieutenant Hernandez said, his expression mollified. "What was it like? Freeing all those people from the concentration camps?"

Steve's mind travelled back to his mission invading the Mittelwerk, an enormous munitions factory with tunnels stretching for miles beneath the ground. Hitler had used Jewish slave-laborers from the nearby Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, carving out tunnels and manufacturing the munitions the Nazi war machine was using to exterminate them. Even as they'd stormed the facility, trying to get their hands on the scientists and research into the next-generation V4 rocket, including their star scientist, Klaus Von Brun, the Nazi's primary concern had been executing as many Jewish scientists as possible to eliminate any information they might share with the Allies by planting a bullet into each of their brains.

"It took that long because the Jews sabotaged them every step of the way," Steve said. "I was with the unit that freed them. Over 20,000 Jewish laborers Hitler worked to death in the Mittelwerk."

"Twenty thousand?" Hernandez whistled. The technician looked down at the wheel assembly he was greasing. "I heard it was … bad."

Steve recalled the emaciated workers he'd freed. Walking skeletons. Only their too-large eyes and fact they remained animated letting the Allied troops know some were still alive. Steve shuddered. The Chitauri invasion had been bad, but only _he _had ever witnessed first-hand man's inhumanity to man on a scale as large as the Nazi death camps.

"It was a delicate dance the Jews played," Steve said. "Stay alive another day, knowing the work they did was killing other families, or die, knowing their families would be killed the moment they were no longer useful as a carrot to make them work. What would _you _do in that situation?"

"Never thought of it like that, Sir," Hernandez said. His expression was thoughtful.

Steve ran his hand along the sleek lines of his Harrier Jet. Jet-engine technology had been in its infancy when he'd disappeared beneath the ice, something only capable of propelling crude V2 missiles into the air to drop bombs on hapless European cities. The Harrier was one of the few technologies which pleased him about being cast forward into the future, visible proof his mission to snatch jet engine and rocket technology from the Nazi war machine had paid peacetime dividends. The Harrier was, of course, a weapon of war. But the civilian jumbo jet he'd flown from New York to Los Angeles had been a delight, not even the colicky infant who'd wailed the entire trip enough to mar his enjoyment of the sheer peacetime … ordinariness … of the technology he'd freed from the hands of his enemies.

Steve nodded for the airman to carry on and climbed up into the cockpit, leaning back into his seat and closing his eyes. He allowed the reassuring rumble of the C-130 Hercules' four turboprop engines to seep into his bones and lull him to sleep. Turboprop engines. Living proof that, sometimes, the old stuff still worked better.

X

_Don't forget to hit the big blue button on your way out and let me know your thoughts. And if you catch some bonehead character development resonating just wrong, please speak up! Thanks for reading!_


	6. Chapter 6

_Thanks to everyone who's read this so far, added it to their favorites list or reviewed, including __**Melibells,**_ _**GhibliGirl91,**_ _**M.H. R.**__ and __**LazyNezumi. **__I give special thanks to those who pointed out spots that were confusing, poorly written, or needed clarification. FYI – the Chitauri are the grey-skinned lizard-like creatures who allied with Loki in the movie. They (and their leader Herr Klaiser) were one of Captain America's villains in the original comic books, only their lizard forms were never clearly shown until the Avengers movie._

_In attempting to weave multiple alternate Marvel canons and my own creative writing, sometimes things get muddled. In the last chapter I painted Hawkeye and Natasha as being recipients of a lesser variant of the Super-Soldier Serum (the Infinity Serum) the same as Nick Fury. In response to a reader question, I did additional research and could discover no source canon for that assumption. Only Fury received the Infinity Serum which has enhanced his natural abilities and slowed his aging in the Marvel canon. Oh well…it was an inadvertent deviation from canon (versus –intentional- in the case of Bernice). Everybody roll up your sleeve look the other way … this won't hurt a bit. [*jab*]_

_ X_

Chapter 6

The night-vision goggles gave everything an eerie, greenish glow, nothing like when he'd peered through _real_ binoculars the last time he'd stalked such quarry. Maybe it was his imagination, the 67-year-old whispers of brain-sucking, shape-shifting lizards made real by the green tint of the goggles and the Chitauri he'd battled over New York City? Thor seemed nonplussed about the idea of aliens who could shift forms at will. Loki was, after all, a Frost Giant who'd been trained since birth to hold the shape of an Asgardian. They'd seen no evidence of shape shifting in New York, but the connection Steve had made between the forces Loki had rallied to invade Earth and evidence from a 67-year-old crime scene had everybody on edge.

"Report," Steve called into the intercom.

"Two sentries by the cantina," Natasha's voice spoke quietly over the intercom. "A third by the dock."

"I've got two more by the auto garage," Hawkeye said.

"They look like ordinary civilians to me," Banner said. "How can you tell they're aliens?"

Banner. The team member _least _familiar with formal military protocol, especially as it was usually his mindless alter-ego, the Hulk, who actually went into battle. Banner was diligent about following his lead until his un-jolly green friend took over, at which point it no longer mattered because their cover was blown. It wasn't the mild-mannered scientist Steve worried about, but Iron Man and his pissing contest with the Norse god, Thor. If anything was going to blow this operation before it got off the ground, it would be the fireworks that always resulted whenever the biggest ego in Midgard went head-to-head with the biggest ego in Asgard.

"This is supposed to be a fishing village in the middle of nowhere," Steve whispered, his voice low so it wouldn't carry to unwanted ears. "People would either be inside the cantina drinking, or home in bed this hour of the night. Not loitering outside keeping watch. It doesn't feel right."

"Agreed," Hawkeye said, his voice buzzing in Steve's tiny receiver. "These two aren't acting right for two guys playing cards after work. There's no beer."

"I think you're right about the insignias," Natasha called over. "All three of my guys are wearing black shoulder patches pinned over civilian clothing."

"Swastikas?" Steve asked.

"Um … no," Natasha said. "Black shoulder band. Small silver bar on it. The guy by the docks has a pin on his baseball cap that's … um … wait … it looks like a … skull?"

Steve exhaled, his 67-year-old hatred of the Nazi's coming out as a hiss. Just because his theory was right didn't mean he was happy about it. Panzers. Red Skull hadn't been nicknamed 'skull' simply because his botched attempt to use the super-soldier serum had left his skin with a reddish cast and hairless. He'd been called Red Skull because the Danziger Totenkopf, the death insignia, was the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, more commonly known as the German SS. Nazi puppeteers they were now beginning to suspect weren't simply villains, but part of an armed incursion from space.

Surveillance gave a person too much time to think. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to calm his thoughts. He'd been a fan of Jules Verne, mythology, and the old black-and-white Buck Rogers series growing up the same as any other kid of his generation. He'd adapted to meeting Thor, a demigod, and his murderous brother Loki. He'd adapted to meeting other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with genetic enhancements called 'Mutants.' After all, _he _was a mutant. Of sorts. Only his mutation had been deliberately induced, not the result of the natural selection. But to find out his original World War 2 enemy might really be a race of shape-shifting, brain sucking, lizard-aliens? What would Peggy think?

"Keep an eye on the one with the skull," Steve ordered, confirming his _own _quarry wore the suspicious black Panzer armbands, sans skull. "Those are usually the officers."

"I got the same thing over here," Hawkeye called. "Black shoulder patches. Doesn't fit in with their garage uniforms. Don't see any sign of a skull pin."

"But these guys aren't German," Stark called into the intercom, his voice having a somewhat tinny sound from being enclosed inside his helmet. "They're…" Stark didn't finish the sentence.

Steve caught himself in time to avoid saying the word 'negro,' a term he'd been informed him was no longer acceptable to people of color. In 1945, if he'd called a black man black, there would have been a rumble. Now, Fury had told him, black men were proud to call themselves, well, black.

"Australian Aboriginal," Hawkeye's voiced buzzed in Steve's ear, saving him from putting his boot in his mouth.

"Actually," Bruce Banner corrected them all. "The Melanasian people are descended from Denisovan Hominids. The first known migration out of Africa. Even older than Homo Sapiens or Homo Neanderthalensis. They're the only race of dark-skinned people to also have blonde hair."

Why had the Chitauri chosen _this _sleepy island, out of all of the places in the world they could have hidden, to set up base? Especially given the Nazi's history of ethnic cleansing to get _rid _of anybody who didn't have so-called 'pure' blood? And why come to the only place on the planet where negro … no … um … _black _people had blonde hair? A puzzle that might make sense at some point in the future, but not relevant to the mission today. Today they were supposed to figure out what the Chitauri were up to and hit them hard.

"I detect some nefarious purpose the minions within my quadrant carry out," Thor said. "Mayhaps I should waylay one of their numbers and query his intentions?"

"Speak English!" Stark hissed into the intercom. "This isn't Middle Earth."

"Sayeth the man who whispereth sweet words of Bard Shakespeare to his fair maiden, Miss Potts," Thor retorted in a mock Renaissance English accent.

"Knock it off you two," Steve hissed into the intercom. "Stick to the mission!"

The Iron Man vs. Demigod pissing contest was getting old, although the two hadn't gotten physical in at least a week? The Stark-Thor relationship had moved from brawling, to arm wrestling, to chug fests whenever Pepper wasn't around to get on Tony's case for trying to drink Thor under the table. At the moment, the two were circling each other like bantam roosters, puffing up their feathers and cock-a-doodle-doing, much to the chagrin of the other Avengers. Lucky him! Fury had put _him _in charge of playing referee!

Steve refocused his night-vision goggles on the pair _he _was shadowing, noting the way they moved. The soldiers he'd worked with during the Great War had joked about the Nazi's having a stick up their arse. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could detect that _same _stiffness to the gait of the suspicious Melanasian islanders. Black skin. Blonde hair. Street clothes except for the black patches on their shoulders. And a way of moving that reminded him of a German soldier about to snap to attention and shout 'heil Hitler.'

X

_Note: I broke this battle scene into three chapters because I've found anything longer than 1,500 words begins to hurt the eyes on the wide-screen view of the internet versus the 5,000 word average-chapter-length people are accustomed to in a 'real' book. Or maybe that's just because I'm an old fart and need to invest in a pair of reading glasses? In any event, the action in Melanasia continues in the next chapter…_


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Steve felt like an overwound spring, ready to spring into action at the release of a mechanism. This was a feeling which had not changed in the time he'd been asleep, the feeling of overwrought anticipation as they waited for a mission to go down. He sweltered beneath his suit. Mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds swarmed the places his flesh was exposed. He swatted at them, waiting for the shipment S.H.I.E.L.D. had gotten intelligence was due to arrive via boat from tonight.

"Captain," Nick Fury's voice came over the intercom. "This is Command. A small craft has launched from the target and is headed in your direction."

"Roger," Steve responded. "Everybody hear that? Target approaches."

"Black Widow in position," Natasha called.

"Hawkeye in position," Clint called.

"Banner … um … Hulk … ah … still Banner in position."

"Thor in position," Thor called.

"Yo," Stark said.

Steve suppressed his annoyance. Stark was deliberately baiting Thor. Not him. Stark had come through for them in a big way in New York. Say what you would about the deeply flawed billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist, he was no shrinking violet. They waited, tracking the positions of the suspected agents. The tension in the air was palpable.

"Small craft tying up at the dock," Natasha called over the radio. "Looks like … three men … and an assortment of crates."

"Any insignia?" Steve asked.

"Two … same as the guys by the cantina," Natasha called out. "Black shoulder patch. One silver bar. No pins. The third one is still in the shadows. Skull-pin-man went over to chat with him."

"I've got movement," Tony Stark shouted into the radio. "Thirty or forty men just piled out of the shed behind one of the houses. Don't know how they even fit."

"Same here," Thor called. "Got another fifty piling out of the church. All wearing those black patches."

"This ain't Sunday!" Banner said. "I've got six just came out of a house? They let the door … I can see inside. There's people inside crouched on the ground … screaming. Hostages?"

"Didn't think there were that many adults in this entire village," Natasha said. "Briefing said a population of 145."

"Hawkeye?" Steve called out. "What do you see?"

"Something's going down here at the garage," Hawkeye called. "These two guys suddenly jumped up and opened the garage bay doors … oh … shit!"

The high-pitched whine of engines let the Avengers know Hawkeye referred to Chitauri gliders. The same single-rider aircraft the invaders had used over New York City.

"Move move move move!" Steve shouted into the radio as he ran towards the two suspects he'd been shadowing all night. "Command … this place is crawling with gliders!"

Chaos erupted as Banner switched into his alter-ego. With a roar, he began leaping into the air to pluck Chitauri gliders mid-flight as though he was a cat batting at moths. The whistle of an arrow being released from its bowstring, then an explosion, signaled Hawkeye was following through his mission to prevent any vehicle from exiting that garage. They'd been expecting a couple of trucks, not dozens of Chitauri gliders. How the hell had the Chitauri gotten so many ships in under the radar? Lightening erupting from one corner of the village paired with the high-pitched whine of pulse reactors exploding showed where Iron Man and Thor had temporarily set aside their differences to work together.

"How many?" Fury crackled over the radio from the command helicarrier.

"Hundreds!" Steve shouted. "And they're headed your way!"

"Take them out," Fury said. "We'll launch fighter jets."

"You'd better hurry," Steve shouted into the intercom. "These things are moving fast!"

The two guards he'd been watching all evening spotted Steve running towards them. They paused and stared, recreating that odd delay Steve had always noted back when he'd fought SS sympathizers before, but never understood. One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one … a two and a half second delay. The two guards crouched and positioned themselves to move to either side of him, as though each were an arm readying itself to grab someone in a bear hug. Appendages, Stark had called them. Yes. He could see it now. Black shoulder patches. Single silver stripe. No pins. Drones. Somewhere, a higher-functioning alien was using these two as a biomechanical robot and prepping them to smash him between them like a pair of arms smashing cymbals.

Steve threw himself at the first of the two, then at the last moment changed direction and kicked the other one full in the chest. Not the usual Nazi fare. In the past nearly all SS agents had possessed blonde hair and blue eyes. While both of these men possessed the unusual blonde hair of native Melanasians, their skin and features were as dark as those of any Australian Aboriginal. The sudden change of ideology stuck a discordant note in Steve's mind. Steve rolled and struck out with his shield, hitting one of the suspected Chitauri off the side of the face. The suspect swayed, but was otherwise unfazed. Steve ducked just in time to avoid being shot in the face by the second of the two suspects. This latest suit was bulletproof. The places where his skin was exposed were _not._

"Captain," Natasha called. "The guy on the dock. He's wearing a long red-and-black cloak and hood."

"That fits the description of this nefarious Other my brother reported cohorting with to perpetuate his foul plan," Thor called into his radio."

"Natasha," Steve called out, just barely ducking the first guards punch. He kicked the suspect in the stomach and then hit him over the head with his shield. "He's the leader. Take him out."

"With pleasure," Natasha said into the intercom, her voice emotionless and cold the way it _always _got whenever she moved in for the kill.

An angry roar and sight of an entire tree rising above a house and smashing into its roof clued Steve the Hulk was now fully in the game. Neither the enormous crash, nor the screams of civilians startled out of their homes in terror, drew so much as a sideways glance from the two he ran headlong into. _He _was the quarry of whatever puppetmaster was pulling the strings. Not the Hulk. More sixty-seven year old puzzle pieces he had noticed, but never understood, clicked into place.

"Team, team," Fury shouted over the radio. "Return to base! Repeat. Return to the helicarrier! Three Leviathans just erupted out of the ocean!"

In the background, Steve could hear explosions and the screams of injured men. The helicarrier had been hit!

"It's an ambush!" Steve shouted into the intercom. "They're not after us. They're after the helicarrier!"

Miles out in the ocean, Steve could see blasts of white weapons fire and red explosions lighting up the inky sky as three Leviathans did battle with the helicarrier. Another explosion from the direction of the garage indicated Hawkeye was still busy trying to prevent any more gliders from escaping the garage.

"Band together. Band together!" Steve shouted. Done with games, he pulled out his handgun and shot the guard who had been toying with him right between the eyes. The only way he'd ever been able to kill such a drone back in Nazi Germany. "Natasha! Do you have the quarry in your sights?"

The Hulk roared. Smashing. Lightning erupting from the sky as Thor used Mjolnir to decimate his enemies. Steve grunted in pain as a bullet hit him in the chest, right where his heart lay beating just beneath the thin protection of his red-white-and-blue suit. Nothing below a 50-caliber bullet could pierce his Captain America suit, but it still left him gasping for breath. He rolled and hit the assailant standing over him with his shield before he'd even risen back onto his feet, the momentum knocking the guard backwards. Steve finished the much-practiced roll and used his own momentum to land right back in a standing position. Some part of his mind noted the slight delay in the guard reacting to the unexpected move. The guard raised a weapon which was most definitely _not _of terrestrial origin and prepared to fire. Without hesitation, Steve shot the second alien right between the eyes.

It sure _looked _like human blood…

"Natasha!" Steve called a second time. "Report! Do you have the quarry in your sights?"

No answer.

"Hawkeye!" Steve shouted. "Help her. We need to take down those two leaders! Skull-pin and cloak-man. If we take out the leaders, the drones will fall!"

"On it!" Hawkeye shouted.

"Trouble coming your way, Captain!" Stark shouted. "Looks like _they _have the same idea you do. Take out the leader."

Drones changed direction and swarmed towards where Steve stood, converging on his position. A big green blur bounded past him, leaping into the air and swatting at the gliders as though they were butterflies.

"Hulk!" Steve shouted, pointed into the air. "Look. Frisbees!"

"Frisbee good," Hulk growled, leaping into the air once more and plucking one out of the air. He swung it around as though it were a Frisbee and used it to take out a second glider.

Steve noted the lack of a death-scream from the Chitauri who fell to the ground and was stomped to death beneath the Hulk's feet. That peculiar delay he'd always recognized, but never understood, was beginning to make sense now that he understood there was a bigger picture. Unmanned drones hadn't existed in 1945 to act as a reference point to figure out why there had always been a 2.5 second delay between an unexpected action and then a _reaction _on the part of the German SS, but they sure did now. As the Hulk bounded further into the village, Steve glanced down to see what insignia the Chitauri who'd been plucked out of the sky was wearing, but the corpse was too blood-splattered to make out anything except gore.

"Natasha's down," a strangled cry came over the intercom. "Steve. That hooded bastard took down Natasha."

Before Steve could respond, an enormous explosion lit the ocean as though a sun were going supernova.

"Command!" Steve shouted, feeling his stomach drop as a scene all too reminiscent of Pearl Harbor flashed back to an earlier war. "Command! Are you there?"

"We're hit!" Fury shouted. "We're going down!"

A secondary explosion rocked the sky. Off in the distance, Steve could see the outline of the helicarrier tilt towards the ocean as a Leviathan shot out a second engine. Outgunned three-to-one. The fiery inferno showed three Leviathans slithering across the sky like gigantic leeches as they moved into position to take out the third engine. Ambush. This whole operation had been a setup to take out the one fully operational helicarrier Earth had left.

"Help them," Steve shouted into the radio. "Iron Man. Thor. Help the helicarrier! They're going down!"

Their differences forgotten, Steve watched as Iron Man in his flying mechanical suit and the Norse God of Thunder swinging Mjolnir to get airborne raced towards the wounded helicarrier. Helicarriers were like any other aircraft carrier. Floating cities. Between crewmen and flight crew, there were more than 5,000 men on that ship.

"Hawkeye," Steve shouted. "Is she still alive?"

"I don't know," Hawkeye said. His voice sounded high-pitched and strangled. Like a little boy crying out because he was scared. "Steve. I can't get at her."

Steve now had the answer to his question. Yes. There _was _something going on between those two members of the team. Behind the dock Steve couldn't see from this position, but where he knew Natasha lay dead or wounded, he saw what appeared to be bolts of lightning aimed at one of the three Chitauri Leviathans. Thor. And also the helicarrier behind him lit up at a 45 degree angle. It was definitely going down.

"We need to even these odds," Steve shouted to the others. "Hawkeye … just keep them off of her until we can get there. Hulk … smash! I'm going to get my harrier jet."

Steve ran to where he'd silently glided the Harrier jet in using an electromagnetic float drive Stark had retro-engineered and hidden it in the jungle several clicks from the suspect village. As he ran, his pace strained even _his _ability to run without huffing and puffing like an asthmatic. He wondered why Nick Fury had placed _him, _a mere soldier, in charge of leading the superheroes and demi-gods who made up the Avengers instead of someone a little more … super?

_The action continues in the next chapter…_


	8. Chapter 8

_Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this story so far and added it to their favorites list. I'd like to give special thanks to __**M.H.T. of R., Tardiswing, LazyNezumi **__and __**Garnet86 **__for leaving reviews. M.H.T. of R … fixed those grammatical errors … friends don't let friends post fanfiction chapters written after midnight! __**GhibliGirl91 **__… I got a big pink post-it note on my PC for two chapters from now. Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing. Reviews make my day!_

_X_

Chapter 8

Steve jerked the control to the left, just in time to get the Harrier jet out of the way of weapons fire shot from the ground. Beneath him, the Hulk bounded to a rooftop like King Kong dangling off the Empire State Building, a shattered glider dangling from one hand like Fay Wray as he reached for a second with the other hand. The Hulk leaped in his direction as though to do the same to him, but pulled his punch at the last moment, opting to take out a glider moving into position behind him. Steve breathed a sigh of relief. The Hulk was coming to view the Avengers as a form of 'pack mate,' but relying on the mindless brute to make more subtle distinctions between friend and foe was a mistake.

"Hawkeye," Steve called into the intercom. "What's your twenty?"

"I've kept them off of her so far," Hawkeye called, his voice still having that panicked edge Steve wasn't used to hearing in the normally reserved archers voice. "But I haven't been able to get any closer. They've ducked back into the boat and left her on the dock."

"That's good," Steve said. "It will keep her from becoming a friendly fire incident. Is she moving?"

"No."

Not good. Natasha was more valuable to them as a hostage. If they'd left her behind, chances were she was already dead. He kept the thought to himself, unwilling to upset the equilibrium of their archer any further than he already was by the loss of his … girlfriend?

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god," Tony Stark shouted into the radio in horror from somewhere over the ocean. "It's … oh!"

An explosion detonated over the Pacific, light from the conflagration highlighting a black mushroom cloud rising into the night sky as the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy ignited upon impact with the ocean. Sound reached the tiny Micronesian island several seconds _after _the pyroclastic display of fireworks had reached its apex and begun to recede, knocking Steve's Harrier jet back and causing it to yaw wildly from side to side. Steve fought with the controls until certain the engines would not stall, watching in horror as explosion after explosion gave the illusion the ocean was on fire as the helicarrier slipped beneath the waves.

"Command," Steve called. "Command? Is anybody there?"

No answer. If Fury had gotten out alive, he'd be on one of the fighter planes or one of the smaller ships used for shuttling supplies back and forth from port when the helicarrier was not airborne. The lack of response didn't necessarily mean Fury was dead. But it _did _mean nobody was in charge of this clusterfuck at the moment except for _him._

"What is your command, Captain Rogers?" Thor called over the intercom. "Provide cover for the lifeboats? Or smite the two remaining Leviathans?"

Two men against two Leviathans. The rest of the Avengers were too far away to be effective. They'd battled this enemy before. Stark destroying the mothership had allowed them to prevail the last time they went head-to-head against the Chitauri. Not one man against a machine. They had no idea where the mothership was. Sacrificing two of his men when the battle had already been lost made no sense.

"Provide cover for the people in the water," Steve ordered. "I want anyone who goes near them to be shot out of the sky."

"By your command," Thor said.

"Stark," Steve called out. "Get that fancy AI of yours to call in the cavalry. Get whatever ships are in the area out here stat to pull those men from the water."

"Already on it," Stark said. "The USNS Able and HMAS Melbourne are both within an hour of responding. Several small fishing vessels have answered our hails, but are hesitant to get involved until we clear the gliders. The USS Enterprise has also responded and should be in the area within seven hours."

"Enterpr…. Oh … yes," Steve said, squelching his surprise before blurting out something stupid such as 'she's still in commission?' "Yes … good. See what else you can get to respond."

He'd been briefed when boarding the U.S.S. Gerald Ford before New York that it was _not _the same Enterprise he'd spent time on during the battle for the Pacific. While Steve had been asleep, a _new _Enterprise had replaced the old one, been used for decades, and relegated to dry dock pending decommissioning in light of the two Ford-Class helicarriers brought online the past year. After New York, it was put back in service while the U.S.S. Gerald Ford was being repaired. Just like him. Old technology pulled out of the mothballs when the newer technology had failed.

"Captain," Hawkeye called, interrupting his musings. "I haven't seen any activity from that runabout that docked by Natasha in almost twenty minutes. Request permission to go in."

"Permission granted," Steve called. "Clint … be careful. These guys took down Black Widow."

"Roger," Hawkeye said, his voice warbling.

"Just let me clean up this mess here and then I'll have your back," Steve added. He maneuvered the Harrier jet in to provide cover for the civilians they'd spotted huddled inside a house. The people ran outside, screaming, when the Hulk smashed through the roof. The Hulk roared, looking between the people running away in terror and the six gliders coming in after them, trying to figure out which target he wished to pursue.

"Cap-n," Hulk rumbled, spotting the Harrier jet and gesturing towards it the way an ape might acknowledge a zookeeper coming at it with a banana. It was about as close as the unjolly green giant came to asking for orders.

"Gliders!" Steve shouted over the intercom. "Gliders bad. Smash gliders."

"Smash good," Hulk rumbled giving him a flat-toothed grin. He turned and lumbered towards the gliders giving chase to the Melanasian civilians, plucking one out of the sky and thwapping it upon the ground like a toddler smashing his toys. "Good. Smash good."

Steve gave chase to the remaining five gliders, shooting out two more. The remaining three headed towards where Hawkeye was letting fly arrow after exploding arrow at the boat which had carried the suspected Chitauri puppetmaster. The Other?

"Hawkeye … you got company!" Steve shouted over the radio.

Hawkeye responded by turning and aiming two of his exploding arrows in a row, taking out two of the gliders. The third glider circled Hawkeye, oblivious to Steve positioning the Harrier jet in behind him. Once again, Steve noted the peculiar lack of situational awareness of the Chitauri he was chasing, this one in its true alien form. Shooting the creature out of the sky, he maneuvered the thrust vectoring nozzle on his Pegasus engine downwards to hover between where Natasha lay, unmoving, on the dock and the boat Hawkeye had destroyed. Hawkeye ran out and kneeled on the ground beside her as Steve landed the jet.

"Is she…" Steve asked.

"Alive," Hawkeye said. He picked Natasha up and cradled her to his chest. "She's alive."

"Get her inside," Steve said, glancing back at the burning boat. He aimed his sidearm in that direction, expecting the skull-pin man or the hooded leader to attempt to overpower them, but nothing happened. Wherever they had gone, they were no longer here. Nor did Steve think they were dead. The Leviathans had escaped, taking the Chitauri gliders with them. Hawkeye placed Natasha in the co-pilot seat of the Harrier jet and buckled her in.

"Get her to safety, Steve," Hawkeye said, his eyes glistening, although maybe that was just from the smoke? "Hulk and I will clean up here."

"Roger," Steve said. Slamming shut the glass of his cockpit, he headed out into open water where the radio chatter between Iron Man and Thor had shifted from seeing which one of them could blow up the most ships to working together to help waterlogged sailors make their way to floating wreckage until the rescue ships could get there. Barking orders through his comms channel at the small rescue armada steaming towards them, he aimed the Harrier jet to rendezvous with the U.S.S. Enterprise, their new flagship.

How the hell had _he _ended up in charge?

* X * X *

"How is she?" Steve asked.

Hawkeye sat next to Natasha's narrow cot, not even in the medical bay so swamped was the U.S.S. Enterprise with the dead and dying. Out of more than five thousand crewman on the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, less than a thousand had been found so far. They'd just received word a civilian vessel had fished Nick Fury and Maria Hill out of the water, but with only a two-way radio to relay messages, communication was still dicey. Until Fury got here, Steve was coordinating rescue duties with the Captain of the Enterprise and trying to rally technology he could only vaguely understand, such as satellites, to track where the two remaining Leviathan ships had disappeared to.

"They don't know why she won't wake up," Clint said, holding her hand. "There's not a mark on her except … that." He pointed to a wound that looked like a small hole drilled into the narrow space between the bridge of Natasha's nose and her eyeball. Steve shuddered. He'd seen such wounds before, back when he'd been chasing Nazi ghosts. Usually, the victim was dead by the time the Allied troops had gotten to them.

"What do the doctors say?" Steve asked.

"They say it's not the same thing like when Loki took control of my mind with the tessaract cube," Hawkeye said. "I had brain activity. It was just suppressed in the part of my brain that edited executive function. Natasha's … she's …"

Clint choked and looked away. His words came out as almost a whisper.

"Brain dead."

She looked so peaceful laying there, her chest rising and falling as though she were asleep. Brain-sucking aliens. The French resistance had whispered stories about brain-sucking shape shifters who would suck the life out of their victims and then turn into them. As soon as Banner finished sleeping off the after-effects of his rampage as the Hulk, he would autopsy the dead Melanasian civilians the Chitauri had seized control of and try to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Keep talking to her," Steve said. "If she's still in there, your voice will anchor her."

Clint nodded and resumed stroking Natasha's hand. Steve would normally have let out a prayer for her safe recovery, but having had his entire notions of god, the universe and everything turned upside down since he'd gone to sleep in one generation and woken up in another, he was no longer certain there was anybody home to listen to him. If god, with a capital G, was anywhere near as flawed as the gods, with a small g, represented by Thor and his ilk, prayer seemed pointless. Not even _that_ had been left for him to fall back on and anchor him in this new world when he'd been cast forward in time.

"Captain," a soldier called him from across the hanger that was serving as a temporary medical bay. "Captain … Lieutenant Hernandez is asking for you."

Steve walked over to where a barely recognizable Hernandez fought for each and every breath, half his face smashed in by some impact when the ship had crashed. Both legs and an arm were missing, and by the amount of blood soaked through the bandages wrapped around his torso, it appeared he'd suffered grievous internal injuries. There was an IV in his arm, but by the black 'X' marked on the soldier's forehead and grim expression on the battle buddy who was attending him, Hernandez had been triaged as unlikely to survive. The soldier who'd called him over vacated the place next to his friend's cot so Steve could kneel next to him.

"We didn't expect him to even wake up," the attendant said. "The first thing he did when he regained consciousness was ask about you."

Steve averted his eyes to stare into the one, good eye and portion of Hernandez's face that still looked like a human being instead of ground beef. This wasn't the first time he'd sat in on a death watch. Not by a long shot. But no matter how many times he attended to the dying, it never got any easier.

"Hernandez," Steve said. "The doc says he's going to patch you up and you'll be good as new."

"Liar," Hernandez said with a cough. He smiled. "They said you took out the ones that were coming at us from the mainland."

"Yeah," Steve said. "I shot them down with my Harrier jet. It worked real good. Thanks for getting her ready for me. I couldn't have done it without you."

"Good," Hernandez said. He coughed again, his eyes filled with fear. "Captain. They said you died and came back. What's it like? Being dead?"

Steve clutched his hand.

"You just go to sleep and its real quiet," Steve said. "And then one day you wake up in a white room with this real pretty angel looking over you dressed like a nurse."

A lump rose in his throat. Sometimes, he wished he'd _stayed _dead.

"I see one now," Hernandez said, staring past Steve's shoulder at some point no one of this world could see. "She's telling me to come with her." He coughed and grasped Steve's hand. "She said there's a place soldiers like me get to go when they die."

"It's called Valhalla," Steve said, squeezing Hernandez's hand. "I have it on good authority from Thor that it's a real nice place to go."

"Then why'd you come back, Captain?" Hernandez asked. He panted, his eyes losing focus as his breath came in tiny gasps. His body spasmed. A tiny jerk. And then his last breath left his body and was silent.

Steve reached over and closed Hernandez's one remaining eye.

"I guess they didn't want me there."

X

_Note: the battle over Micronesia against the Chitauri and loss of the helicarriers is Marvel canon, as is Iron Man and Thor saving as many crewmen as possible. I selected Melanasia, an isolated cluster of islands within Micronesia, because of the inhabitants unique genetic features which will be developed later. In the original cannon, eleven helicarriers were saved. Only in Avengers, they claim the helicarrier is a Ford class aircraft carrier. In real life in 2012, only two Gerald Ford class super-carriers are currently near completion and another five are approved by Congress but still yet to be built. As far as I know, they are NOT heli-carriers but they're pretty darned big! _

_As many as 15 small and medium-sized carriers engaged the Battle of the Phillipines during World War II, but since the invention of the supercarriers, I am not aware of any more than four ever being clustered in recent time. They're too vulnerable. The U.S.S. Gerald Ford is the real name of the Ford-class carrier currently almost built, and the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy is the Ford-class carrier nearing completion, so those are the names I used for this fic._

_Be sure to hit that big blue button on your way out the door and let me know what you think! The next chapter will turn back to our heroes life in the real world and the two women who can help him navigate this strange new world called the future._


	9. Chapter 9

_Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this story so far and added it to their favorites list. I'd like to give special thanks to __**Melibells, Garnet86, AoiKuroNekoSan, M.H.T. of R. **__and __**Pati G W Black**__, for leaving reviews. I love receiving feedback (even if it's to tell me you don't like something about my writing 'cause that helps me make the next chapter better) so please feel free to make this story a two-way exercise…_

_A change of tone here. Back to the real world. The one without super-ego's exploding all over the place._

_X_

Chapter 9

"It wasn't your fault, Steve," Peggy said, her voice tired and thin.

"No," Steve said. "I know. It's just…"

"You never asked for this," Peggy said. "You never asked for _any _of this." Peggy reached out with one frail hand, her skin parchment thin and cool, and took his hand in hers. "Stark always feared you'd balk after Doctor Erskine died."

Steve thought back to his early days, gate-crashing every enlistment station in New York trying to get somebody to overlook his poor athletic abilities and asthma.

"Actually," he said, giving the first hint of a smile he'd had in days. "I distinctly remember I _did _ask for this. The gods must be laughing about giving me my wish."

Peggy laughed, a mere echo of the brassy laugh she'd possessed back in 1945, but it was still Peggy's laugh. She coughed and lifted her oxygen mask to her blue-tinted lips, snorting as she both gasped for breath and laughed all at the same time. Her exuberance in the face of her own mortality caused Steve to see his insecurities for what they really were. Insignificant. Peggy laughed at _him_, and it caused _him _to laugh at _himself_ along with her. She'd always had that effect on him. Perspective. Steve plugged away at whatever idealistic goal he'd set his mind to achieving and never gave up, while Peggy viewed everything with a pragmatic eye. Together … they'd been stronger.

"You okay?" Steve asked, concerned when she clutched the mask to her face a bit longer than the previous time he'd visited. He waited while she calmed her coughing before answering him.

"Of course I'm not okay," Peggy snapped. "I'm 94 years old and dying. But I'll manage."

Her voice was filled with humor, but in her eyes was a mixture of weariness and longing. Peggy was tired of this world and anxious to cross into the next one, to be reunited with a husband and siblings who'd long since passed before her. Steve thought back to the young Lieutenant who'd died, who'd claimed to see a woman beckoning him to a place where soldiers got to go when they died. If such a place really existed, he knew Peggy would receive a hero's welcome. He was certain of it.

His thoughts turned back once more to the Chitauri ambush. He'd come to visit Peggy, not pick her brains, but she was the only other person still alive who'd seen first-hand what happened when the Schutzstaffel, the German SS, took over a village. Only this time, instead of using blonde-haired, blue-eyed white supremacists for hosts, puppets, whatever the Chitauri were doing to their victims, they were using blonde-haired Aboriginal men.

"How's your friend?" Peggy asked, tapping his hand to bring his mind back into the same room as her.

"Natasha?" Steve said. His mind travelled back to the last time he'd seen her. "Nothing's changed. Banner isn't sure if she's really brain dead, or if they injected something into her brain to sedate her higher brain functions that isn't showing up on the PET scan. He said her bodily functions are moving too smoothly for it to be brain death, but they're reading no electrical activity at all. Not even enough to generate the reflexes she still has left."

Peggy sat quietly, as though turning over something in her mind.

"You should tell your friend Stark to do a little archeological dig in his father's basement," Peggy said. "I think he'll find things that might be useful."

"Stark!" Steve snorted. "Like father, like son. Although personally, I think the father was a better man."

Peggy's faded brown eyes crinkled around the edges, her expression clouded with some emotion Steve hadn't quite been able to nail down whenever he mentioned the elder Stark's name. Not for the first time, he wondered why Peggy had left Stark's employ after the war and deliberately made herself scarce.

"I think you judge the younger Stark too harshly," Peggy said softly. "I can't imagine what it was like for him to grow up under Howard's shadow. It's why I…"

Peggy trailed off. Steve opened his mouth to ask the question he'd asked himself a thousand times, and then shut it again. It was none of his business.

"No," Peggy said as though reading his thoughts. She gave him a grin that was so like the sarcastic grin she'd had in 1945 that for a moment, it was almost as if the younger version of Peggy was sitting before him. "That wasn't why I left."

Steve cocked one eyebrow, weighing whether to ask the million dollar question. So why _had _Peggy gone so far to disappear that all record of her had vanished along with her. Peggy looked down at her hands, her fingers trailing over the liver spots marring her skin. Steve waited for her to gather her thoughts.

"Every man in the unit that stormed the inner sanctum of Red Skull's fortress was killed," Peggy said at last. "The only evidence we had he possessed alien technology was your last radio transmission saying you were going after some sort of power supply. There was nothing left but shrapnel from whatever technology had been in that room before Red Skull blew the place to hell."

"I wouldn't know," Steve said, his tone low. "I wasn't around to be debriefed."

"No you weren't," Peggy said. She paused, looking at her hands as if, just for a moment, she didn't recognize the wrinkled claws that time had ravaged. "Stark … the elder one … he'd been going downhill for quite some time. The paranoia. The obsessive rituals. The mood swings. His fear of germs. It was my job to help him keep it all together and make sure the world didn't find out the boy genius had a few screws loose. But after we lost _you_, he got downright scary. Ranting about alien conspiracies and tessaract cubes when all we had was your last radio transmission. And then…"

"Then what?" Steve asked.

"He'd been after me to marry him for years," Peggy said. "Always told him no. Howard didn't have it in him to be faithful. But after your plane went down, he became … callous. As if he _wanted _to taunt me you were gone. Howard always had an element of unbalance about him, but he'd never been deliberately cruel."

"I'm sorry," Steve said.

Peggy looked up at him, tears visible in her eyes beneath her coke-bottle glasses.

"He was jealous of a dead man," Peggy said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "I'd always been able to handle it when he bought off any other man I had an interest in or chased him off. But then he tried to imply you'd done something wrong pursuing Red Skull and the loss of the alien technology was your fault. He tried to falsify your service record so they wouldn't posthumously give you the Congressional Medal of Honor."

The Congressional Medal of Honor. The highest award a soldier in the armed forces could be given, often after making the ultimate sacrifice. Their life. The medal had been tucked amongst his few personal effects, along with the engagement ring. _Both _Stark's had a habit of viewing what was theirs as … theirs. He could see why Stark may have been jealous after discovering there had been more between him and Peggy than either had let on.

Had Stark told Peggy about the ring? No. He didn't think so. Especially given this new piece of information. The yellowed packing log which had been tucked into the small sealed trunk of personal effects marked 'classified' had been signed by Howard Stark _personally_. It was an odd duty for one so … important.

It was in the past. A past neither of them had any power to go back and change. Peggy's fatalistic acceptance had a way of calming his desire to obsess over things that had occurred 67 years ago as if they had happened yesterday because, for him, they _had _happened yesterday. It quelled some of that frantic urgency clamoring in Steve's chest to _do something. _To go back and fix things that had happened so long ago, most people in the world had forgotten these wrongs had ever even existed.

"So I quit," Peggy said. "I had enough connections from my days with the Office of Foreign Service to make sure even _he _couldn't find me unless I wanted to be found."

So in the end, Stark had lost Peggy anyways. Even though she _hadn't _known about the ring. They sat in a comfortable silence, Steve's hand placed reassuringly over hers. His eyes wandered up to the pastel portrait Peggy's niece had sketched on the wall. Not a bad likeness. He'd seen plenty of idealistic sketches done by adoring fans of the myth called Captain America back before most people had possessed cameras, but this was the first sketch anybody had ever done of _him. _A nobody passed in a hallway.

"She's very talented," Peggy said, her sharp mind following the direction of his gaze.

"Yes, she is," Steve acknowledged. "She even captured my 'helmet head' that day from wearing a motorcycle helmet.

They both laughed. Combing his hair had been the _last _thing on his mind that first visit, but he'd made a point of running a comb through his hair every visit _since _then. With her too-sharp artist's eye, the last thing he wanted was some _other _damning detail memorialized for posterity in one of her sketches. He hadn't crossed paths with her since, though, which was disappointing. Steve tended to visit mid-morning, while Peggy's niece was still a student.

"What's it like?" Peggy interrupted his thoughts. "Babysitting a whole gaggle of super-egos?"

Steve gave her a wry smile. "Babysitting is the operative word."

"It gives you a new appreciation for what I did back then," Peggy said. "Doesn't it?"

"You only had to babysit Howard Stark," Steve said. His smile disappeared. "And me. Although all I ever wanted to do was serve. Here's a mission. Rally the men. _Do _the mission. Mission done. You slap each other on the back and move on to the next one. But with these guys…"

His words trailed off. Charismatic leaders had a way of rallying the men around them and inspiring them to put themselves in harm's way, but a _true _charismatic leader, like Howard Stark had been, or his son was like now, often took unnecessary risks. They were so wrapped up in their own sense of invulnerability that they often forgot the troops they sent into harm's way were not bulletproof.

If anything, that failing of human leadership had gotten _worse _while he'd been asleep. In 1945, all but the highest ranking commanders fought at their sides. If the troops got shot, they did too. Heck! Even Old Blood and Guts had put on his flak helmet and ridden out amongst his troops to keep up morale while storming the coasts of Normandy! But today? Today decisions were made from distant command centers using spy satellites, unmanned drones, and generals so removed from the troops they commanded that spotting one on a battlefield was about as likely as spotting a unicorn.

The lives of soldiers had always been chess pieces. Pawns used to achieve objectives in a larger war. But nowadays soldiers were electronic ghosts in a machine like those training videos Fury had tried to get him to use instead of training for _real _with the enlisted men. As though you could just reboot a soldier and create a new one out of thin air? At least in chess, the generals had always understood you only got so many pawns and then it was game over!

"They mean well," Steve finally said, realizing Peggy had let him think things through without interrupting his thoughts. "They just … I guess I shouldn't complain. At least they get their hands dirty."

The younger Stark had, after all, come up with an inexpensive, lightweight version of Steve's bulletproof Captain America suit for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to wear. Something as mundane as body armor for ordinary soldiers had been beneath the elder Stark's notice. Perhaps Peggy was right about the son?

Peggy gave him an enigmatic smile and raised her oxygen mask to breathe. Her health was deteriorating. Her lips and fingernails had the bluish cast indicative of oxygen no longer getting to where it was needed. Steve visited every chance he could to reconnect with the remnant of what he had left of her, the friendship which had survived a 67-year separation. That frantic urge to keep her here clamored in his chest, but even if he _did _discover some secret fountain-of-youth, Peggy didn't want to stay. Her eyes were already turned into the next world and the family she wished to rejoin, just like Lieutenant Hernandez's had been. The Peggy who sat before him was the echo of someone he had once loved, and lost. It hurt, but slowly he was beginning to accept the loss of the dream.

"What are you doing with your spare time?" Peggy asked.

"It's pretty boring," Steve said. "Days, often weeks of doing nothing but trying to keep in shape. Then you get a call from Nick Fury and all hell breaks loose. And then you get sent back to boredom once again."

"Ah!" Peggy laughed. "The life of a soldier. At least that much hasn't changed."

"Yeah," Steve said. He looked down at his boots which weren't military issue combat boots, but still looked like them anyways. His next words came out as almost a mumble. "But at least back then they'd stick me in with the enlisted troops to endure the tedium along _with _them. Nowadays…"

"The last thing you want to do is go hang out with super-egos in your spare time?" Peggy guessed.

"Yeah," Steve said. "Clint and Natasha were the only ones I could really relate to, and they were always wrapped up in each other. Now Natasha's brain dead and Clint hasn't accepted it yet."

Peggy nodded.

"Why'd you buy that old gym?" Peggy asked. "I'd thought the guys who used to beat you up back when you were still a ninety pound weakling used to work out there?"

"They did," Steve said.

He didn't really wish to reveal the hare-brained impulse which had caused him to plunk down his entire 67-year back salary and buy the dilapidated old building on a whim. He'd driven past the old neighborhood, seen it was for sale, and bought it on the spot. Peggy gave him an expectant look, her enigmatic smile letting him know she wasn't going to let him off the hook. Impulsivity, they both knew, had never been a failing of his.

"When I was trying to join the Army and they wouldn't let me," Steve said. "I went to that gym and tried to join so I could get some boxing lessons. The owner laughed me right out of the place. Said I didn't have what it took."

Peggy tilted her head to one side, her brown eyes sparkling with interest. "Go on."

"I shouted back at him that he didn't know nothing about what it meant to be a fighter," Steve said. He gave Peggy a guilty smile. "I told him that one day I'd be such a good fighter that I'd own that place and he'd be working for _me."_

Peggy laughed, pulling her mask to her face to gasp for breath.

Steve's smile disappeared as the empty feeling that had taken up residence in his chest since the day he'd woken up in the future reasserted its presence.

"Too bad the guy isn't still around to see I'm now the boss," Steve said. He looked down on the ground. "It's nothing but an empty shell." He didn't add 'just like my life.'

"You should reopen it," Peggy said.

"I get called out at weird times to do the Avengers thing," Steve said. "I couldn't give the patrons the kind of consistency they deserve."

"Hire someone," Peggy said. "A manager. Someone like _you _used to be. Some skinny guy with lots of spunk who'll inspire all the kids out there getting beaten up by the bullies. Maybe dealing with _them _will help you deal with these Avengers you have to work with?"

"That's a good idea," Steve said. A mission. What his life had been lacking since he'd woken up in a different century than he'd gone to sleep in. "Peggy … you're a genius."

Their conversation turned to Peggy's friend who'd recently retired from Stark Industries and the kinds of potentially alien 'bones' the elder Stark may still have buried deep within the bowels of Stark Enterprises. Peggy procured a promise he'd look into whatever secrets lurked in the Stark Industries basement.

A knock on the door interrupted their conspiracy…

"Come in," Peggy called out.

Peggy's granddaughter, Bernice, poked her head into the door.

"Mrs. Schnieder said you have company … oh!" Bernice said. "Hi. Again. I mean…"

"Hi," Steve said. He noted the differences between Peggy and her granddaughter. Where Peggy was self-assured to the point of being smug, even in old age, her granddaughter was much more skittish.

"If you want … I can come back … um …" Bernice stammered.

"Nonsense," Peggye said. "You took two busses and a subway to get here."

Peggy was tiring from his lengthy visit. It would be easier on her not to have to entertain two guests at once.

"I was just about to leave," Steve said. He rose and gave Peggy a kiss on the cheek, noting how cool her skin felt beneath his lips. He paused, not enough room for two people to pass in the narrow space between the foot of Peggy's bed and the wall. Bernice squeezed past him. The subtle scent of Lux, a soap from _his_ generation which he'd thought was no longer manufactured, filled him with a longing for home. For a moment, it felt as though her bare flesh had brushed against his bare flesh, not just cloth touching cloth. Bernice glanced up, her eyes startled, as though she had noticed the spark of electricity which seemed to leap between them, as well.

"Ex-excuse me," Bernice said. She froze, her chest pressed against his as she looked into his eyes like a deer in the headlights. Her pupils grew so wide her eyes appeared nearly black. "Um … sorry … not a lot of room here." She finished squeezing past, pulling her artists portfolio to cover her heart as though it were a shield. An errant thought jumped into Steve's mind. What it would be like if it was _his _shield she wielded instead of the large, flat portfolio he suspected would be filled with more sketches of naked men?

Steve glanced up at his likeness taped to the wall in the midst of the jungle of photographs of Peggy'sfamily. As though he was one of them now. He glanced at Peggy, and then her granddaughter. With everyone he'd once known now dead and in the grave, Peggy was all he had left to anchor him in the bizarreness his life had become.

"Nice picture," Steve said, not sure how to acknowledge her talent without sounding like he was acting conceited. "I guess … well … Peggy's happy with it."

The color crept up to Bernice's cheeks as she avoided eye contact. She pretended to suddenly be very interested in her shoes.

"Grandma was so happy her old friend's grandson had taken up his mission that I thought she might like it," Bernice stammered. "All my friends … um … grandma said I'm not supposed to talk about you to anyone. "

So that was the cover story Peggy had given her family? He was his own grandson? He met Peggy's eyes. Peggy smiled as she gave him a conspiratorial wink. She'd warned him she kept most of her family in the dark about what, exactly she had done back when they'd walked in the same period of history.

"You know I can't … um …" Steve said. He gave Peggy a pleading look to help him out. He'd never been any good at cloak and dagger deception and he had absolutely no idea what _else _Peggy had told her all-too-perceptive granddaughter about him.

"You know that information is classified, Bernice," Peggy said, her tone patient and firm like a teacher scolding a preschooler. "Don't get Steve in trouble or we'll have Mr. Fury in here yelling at us again."

"Don't want to have _that _happen," Bernice said. Her full red lips curved up in a smile that was eerily like Peggy's. She plunked down in the seat he had just vacated, doing her best to avoid eye contact as her cheeks turned flaming red.

"I'll be in to see you in a few days," Steve said to Peggy.

Peggy shot him a friendly smile, but already she'd turned her attention to whatever Bernice had carried in with the enormous art portfolio she always had tucked under one arm. He was dismissed. Her attention turned to whatever new fire burned for her attention. It didn't matter that the command center Peggy now ran centered in her nursing home room instead of a command center full of four-star generals or that she was now old and frail. Peggy still liked to be in charge. It felt … reassuring.

Feeling better than he had in a long time, Steve strode out to the parking lot to mount his vintage Indian motorcycle. With a kick of his heel, he rode the wind home.


	10. Chapter 10

_Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this story so far and added it to their favorites list. I'd like to give special thanks to __**AoiKuroNekoSan, Jen Lennon,**_ _**Pati G W Black**_ _and __**IlikeKnightsInBangedUpArmor**__ for leaving reviews. I love receiving feedback, comments, ideas, and sometimes I even grant wishes (of the plot variety). This chapter has a few tasty little pieces of candy corn people asked for along the way … it's time to take down that pink post-it note._

_And for those who are wondering about poor brain-dead Natasha and whether or not Steve will ever get a grip on his role as leader of the Avengers … the mysterious hooded Other aka Herr Klaiser is still out there (the Other was the bad guy who made a deal with Loki) and I'm not done writing yet…_

_X_

Chapter 10

Bernice stared up at the tower stretching towards the sky until her head was bent so far back, it felt like it would snap right off of her neck. Stark Industries. The first 100% off-the-grid alternative-energy skyscraper in New York City, now workplace of her best friend in the whole wide world. Jacquie, lucky dog, had just landed a job with the architect renovating damage suffered during the alien attack.

Scaffolding surrounded the building like training wheels, cranes lifting plates of unbroken glass skyward like a child's erector set. Whistles assaulted her ears as construction workers shouted things like 'sweetheart' or 'whoo baby!' at anything remotely female who walked by. Bernice blushed, wishing fervently she'd brought her portfolio to hide behind as she navigated the gauntlet of building supplies, workmen, and areas cordoned off with yellow 'caution' tape. _Every _building in Midtown was in the process of being repaired or, if too badly damaged, torn down, but only Stark Towers was nearing completion. With so much focus on rebuilding infrastructure and people nervous about survival in light of the unexpected confirmation of hostile aliens, there wasn't a lot of work out there right now for a starving artist.

The guard asked her to fill out paperwork stating who she was and why she was here. The building was new, but it had been decorated in a style reminiscent of the art deco architecture of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. As she waited for Jacquie to come down to the lobby, she studied the artfully inlaid wood, steel, and stone. She could see why Jacquie, who specialized in modern art, would have landed a such a plum job.

"Bernice!" Jacquie squealed as she exited the elevator. She gave Bernice a hug, even though they'd seen each other this morning. They were, after all, roommates. Although with graduation only weeks away and Jacquie now having a 'real' job, Bernice had to wonder how long her friend would tolerate the drafty attic they shared in Brooklyn Heights, far from all the action. Greenwich Village was where you wanted to be if you were anybody in the art world.

"This place is spectacular," Bernice said, staring at the intricately inlaid brass and chrome patterning as they waited for the elevator. "Why do they want to renovate it?"

"Not this part," Jacquie said, giving her a smug smile. "I'm helping them redecorate the penthouse!"

"Really?" Bernice asked. "You're painting the penthouse?"

"Um," Jacquie said, giving Bernice a sheepish look. "Actually … it's just a bathroom in one of the guest quarters a few floors beneath it. They're letting me hand-paint a line of trim accenting the tile work."

"But that's such an honor," Bernice said. "I mean … think about it! Stark Tower! And they're going to _pay _you to do it!"

"Yeah," Jacquie said, giving Bernice a triumphant grin. "And besides … it's a pretty cool bathroom. Even if it _is _the tiniest one in the entire building."

She dragged Bernice inside the elevator, a perfect recreation of art deco style. Instead of pushing the 'down' button to the cafeteria, she pushed a button three knobs from the top. A feminine voice asked Jacquie for her access code. Grinning like she'd just won the lottery, Jacquie punched a string of numbers into a keypad.

"But," Bernice said with dismay, looking down at her tired digs. She'd dressed for a casual lunch in the cafeteria, not hobnobbing with the powers-that-be in the tallest skyscraper in town. She'd cast off her trendy ripped jeans for less edgy ones, but her blouse was way too casual for a ride _up _in the elevator instead of down. Unlike Jacquie, who looked every bit the part of a chic artist. Jacquie's flaming red hair was now streaked with black, cut in sharp feathered layers like one of those Japanese anime cartoons or the girl with the dragon tattoo. Her clothing had changed, too. More professional. And black, of course. All the hippest artists dressed totally in black.

"You're going to love this!" Jacquie said, oblivious to Bernice's discomfort. "This has got to be the coolest job ever!"

The elevator dinged. The doors opened. Bernice stared, open-mouthed, as Jacquie dragged her through an upper-level lobby that had an enormous chunk out of one side, as though some animal had taken a bite out of it. She had seen the alien ships come down from the sky on television just like everyone else, but seeing the aftermath up close had a way of bringing what had happened home to her in a way it never had from her 19" television.

"Yeah," Jacquie said, dragging Bernice along by the arm. "That was _my _reaction the first time I took a look at this part of the building. But I've been assured it's still structurally sound. Just don't go past the yellow tape or you'll get yelled at."

This floor of the building, at least, was populated entirely by construction workers and maintenance staff. Bernice breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was to reflect poorly on her best friend, especially her first week on the job. Jacquie dragged her into one of the rooms, some sort of guest suite for visiting corporate VIP's, complete with a small bar and magnificent view of the shattered city, and plopped down onto one of the couches. Above a gas-fired fireplace sat a replica of Malevich's _Supremacist Composition._ Jacquie grinned at her, the black stripes she'd added to her hair giving her the air of a Cheshire cat.

"This is nice," Bernice said. She walked over to admire the painting, noticing the raised corners where paint had been deposited and created texture. It was a painted reproduction, not just a print. "Whoever recreated this did a really good job. Even the signature looks real."

"It's not a replica," Jacquie said, grinning even wider. "It's the original."

"No!" Bernice said. She stared closer at the subtle layers painted one on top of the other to give the geometric shapes a three-dimensional quality. Bernice had never been impressed by reprints of modern art, preferring the freedom afforded by pairing the latest digital technology with her taste for human realism and fantasy, but now that she was standing mere inches from an original painting that didn't have armed guards instead of viewing it from afar, she could see why modern art had appeal.

"There's more," Jacquie said. For the next forty minutes, Jacquie dragged her through suite after suite of bathrooms, closets, and back hallways she'd been charged with enhancing. Not as glamorous as decorating the suites themselves or a high-impact area such as a lobby, but it was one heck of an impressive job for someone straight out of art school.

"I'm jealous," Bernice said, happy for her friend. Her stomach rumbled. "And I'm hungry, too. How about that food you promised me?"

The cafeteria, although artfully decorated, had enough of a milieu of businessmen, maintenance staff, scientific personnel, and construction workers to make Bernice feel more at home than she had in the upper levels of the skyscraper. They dined on salads and homemade bread sticks, bouncing ideas off of one another to enhance the intricate tile work in the one tiny bathroom Jacquie had been given free rein to hand-paint in any way she saw fit. Bernice looked up and froze.

"It's him," Bernice said.

"Who?" Jacquie asked. She followed Bernice's gaze to the tall, hunky guy who looked like something straight out of a World War II propaganda poster, engrossed in a conversation with a statuesque redhead who _had _to be at least six feet tall.

"Capt… uh … my grandmother's friend," Bernice stammered, catching herself before she blurted out information her grandmother wanted kept secret. If it was even true. Grandma had been tight-lipped about the identity of her new friend, but word had gone through the family about Grandma's reaction upon seeing the guy in the red, white and blue suit take on the aliens on the television that terrible day.

"Do you know who that is?" Jacquie hissed, frantically tidying up the lunch debris scattered all over the cafeteria table.

"Yes," Bernice said, surprised Jacquie knew him too. Maybe he was a regular visitor here and _everybody _knew who he was? Disappointment sat heavy in her chest, making her salad feel as though she had poured lead into her stomach. Of course... The guy was drop-dead gorgeous. _Of course _he had a girlfriend. She didn't realize she had stood up until he glanced in her direction and froze, their eyes meeting across the crowded cafeteria like a bad metaphor out of a Sam Spade novel.

Steve's head tilted to one side as though scrutinizing her to make sure she was who he really thought she was, and then bent close to the redhead's ear. The redhead glanced their way and laughed, one hand touching his arm with familiarity. Steve guided the eloquent redhead in their direction. The woman was the most beautiful women Bernice had ever seen. A tall, slender greyhound amongst a cafeteria full of mutts. Four-inch Louboutins clicked in their direction, her shoes alone costing more than Bernice's entire month's earnings at the coffee shop she worked at part-time.

And to think she'd thought she might have a chance with the man she'd spent the last few months fantasizing about!

"Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod," Jacquie squee'd, tugging at her arm, trying to get her to sit down. "They're coming over here."

It felt as though everything was happening in slow motion. Bernice was acutely aware of just how confident Steve appeared to be here, in his natural environment, with his girlfriend on his arm. This was not the man with the sad eyes she'd met in her grandmother's nursing home. Whoever this man was, he was the leader her grandmother had _claimed _he was before she'd realized she was spilling what the family jokingly called 'spy secrets' and clammed up.

"S-s-steve," Bernice stammered.

Jacquie elbowed her in the ribs. Hard.

"Steve tells me you're quite the artist," the redheaded woman said.

Bernice felt like a songbird trapped in a raptor's sights, about to become lunch. The woman's smile was friendly, but not a single detail escaped those brilliant blue eyes. Oh god oh god oh god … she was getting sized up by the guy she'd been fantasizing about's girlfriend!

"Y-y-yes," Bernice said, and then realized she sounded conceited. "I mean _no!" _Jacquie kicked her in the shin. _"_I mean … I'm an artist. But I'm not … I mean … um…"

"Bernice is too modest," Steve said. He gave her a conspiratorial grin. "You should see the pictures she drew for her grandmother. She's got quite an eye for the human form."

By the eyebrow raised in amusement, Bernice knew _exactly _what human form sketches he was referring to. Her cheeks felt as though they were on fire as she remembered Steve crouched beside her, gathering them up.

"Oh, really?" the redheaded woman asked. She gave Steve a look as though she was skeptical of his claims. "What kind of art does she prefer?"

Oh … god. Don't tell her. Don't tell her. _PLEASE d_on't tell her!

"Well she drew a very realistic picture of _me,_" Steve said. His face lit up in a smile that took her breath away. "Helmet head and all."

Bernice cringed, expecting daggers to shoot out of the redhead's eyes. Catfight. Guys were clueless, but his girlfriend would know the only reason she'd drawn Steve's picture was because she had the hots for him. The eloquent woman looked like she was capable of chewing Bernice up and spitting her out for breakfast.

"It-it-it's nothing, really," Bernice stammered. Oh! God! This was even more mortifying than when her nude sketches had splattered all over the nursing home floor in front of the hottest-looking guy to cross her path in … ever!

Steve stepped closer, his broad chest mere inches from her nose. She'd realized before he was tall, dwarfing even the six-foot redhead at his side, but his presence now was almost enough to make her swoon. Ever since the first time she had laid eyes upon him, she'd fantasized about every tiny detail of his face, the line of his jaw, his high cheekbones, the curve of his ear, the way his brilliant blue eyes appeared far older than his youthful features, but why, before now, had she never noticed how very long his lashes were? The detail had eluded her that first pastel she'd drawn of him. Or just how very broad his shoulders were compared to all the other men in the room?

Jacquie stood beside her, her mouth open, looking between Bernice, Steve, and his girlfriend. Bernice caught Steve's girlfriend giving her an appraising gaze.

"Perhaps you might be interested in Bernice's work, Pepper," Steve said. He was so close Bernice could smell the clean scent of Ivory soap and an underlying, musky odor that screamed 'sex!' He smiled down at her as though she were some little sister he wished to indulge. "Her grandmother used to work for Tony's father doing what _you _used to do before you became CEO."

"Really?" the redhead asked. She looked Bernice over from head to toe as though sizing her up. "Make an appointment with my secretary. I'd like to look over your portfolio."

Bernice's mouth opened and shut, no words coming out as she noticed the sprinkle of freckles hidden beneath the redhead's makeup. The woman tugged at Steve's arm, pointing to a box he held in one hand.

"If you want to catch Doctor Nyi," the woman said to Steve, herding him away from what she was obviously perceptive enough to see was a wanna-be challenger for her boyfriend's affections. "We'd better hurry. He's due on a flight back to Los Angeles at fourteen-thirty hours."

"Yeah," Steve said, glancing back at his beautiful redheaded girlfriend. He looked down at Bernice, his smile brilliant and happy, unlike the sad expression he'd worn both times she'd bumped into him at her grandmothers. "I'll catch you some other time. Okay?"

"Y-y-yes," Bernice stammered, her mouth opening and shutting like some pathetic fish gasping for air. She expected daggers to shoot out of the redhead's eyes, but the woman gave her a friendly smile and herded the handsome muse who'd been using up _far _too many sheets of paper and pencils out the other end of the cafeteria, their heads pressed together in friendly rapport.

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god!" Jacquie repeated, furiously tugging at Bernice's arm. "Do you know who that was?"

"Yes," Bernice said, feeling deflated. She plopped back down in the hard, plastic seat, the remnants of her salad suddenly appearing about as appetizing as a plate full of fried grasshoppers. "So much for _that."_

"What are you talking about?" Jacquie asked, her brow wrinkling in confusion. "You just landed a job interview with the CEO of Stark Industries."

"Huh?" Bernice asked. "What are _you_ talking about?"

"Don't you know who that was?" Jacquie asked.

"That was Steve Rogers," Bernice said. "My grandmothers … uh … friend. And obviously his girlfriend. Like I ever had a chance with the guy. Or anything." Her voice trailed off into a mortified mumble. She realized the people seated in the tables around them were all staring at them.

"That was Pepper Potts," Jacquie said, bursting out laughing. "Oh my god! You should have seen the look on your face when she ever came over here! I thought you knew who she was!"

"Um … no," Bernice said. "I had no idea. Oh! She said … oh! She's not his … oh! You mean she really just offered me a job?"

"You've got to get through the interview, first," Jacquie said, her black eyes sparkling in laughter. "Your drop-dead gorgeous friend just came through for you in a big way! Even _–I- _didn't get an interview with the great Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries. I just work for her architect."

"Really?" Bernice said. The reality of Jacquie's words sank in through the fog that was her hopeless crush on Steve Rogers. Her grandmother's mystery man and, if what Grandma Peggy _wasn't _telling her was true, the man on the television who'd helped take down an alien invasion. "You mean … that wasn't his … girlfriend?"

Jacquie burst out laughing, her laugh taking on a honking snort as she slapped her hands on her thighs and needed to sit down.

"Ohmygod!" Jacquie gasped for breath, unable to stop. "I've got to go to the bathroom and pee! You've got it so-o-o bad! How many pictures have you drawn of that guy?"

"Shhh…" Bernice hissed. She glanced over the eyes and ears which surrounded them, all pretending to be interested in their lunches when every one of them was intently interested in why the CEO of Stark Industries and Iron Man's fiancé had just deigned to speak to two little peon art students. Her face lit up in a happy, shit-eating grin as she realized the guy she'd been lusting after didn't have a girlfriend after all. At least not _that _female friend.

Jacquie looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer to her question. Yes. How many pictures _had _she sketched of Steve Rogers, her grandmother's enigmatic friend? Including the one itching at her hand right now to get down on paper the moment she got back to her loft? The one that would highlight his gloriously long eyelashes and his radiant smile?

"A lot."

X

_This whole chapter was totally off-canon, but I'm trying to bring 21-year-old Bernice to life –and- begin pulling her into the Avengers universe without making her another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. When Bernie Rosenthal was first introduced as Steve's love interest in 1980, she was a nieve young Jewish artist (glass, not fine art) who'd just broken up with a guy who turned out to be a white supremacist. Marvel then decided 'ordinary' was too boring as that version of Steve had been around since WWII and not aged, so they turned her into a lawyer. They then scrapped her completely in favor of another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. In Avengers as filmed, Steve Rogers was born in 1920, was frozen in the ice in 1945, and then awoke 67 years later. Despite having shouldered unbelievable leadership responsibility at a young age, you have to remember (after subtracting the 67 years he was frozen) that this version of Steve is only 25-years-old. I chose fine art instead of glass blowing because, well, it's kind of hard to sculpt the guy you've got a hopeless crush on and then have him discover you're idealizing him if you work with blown glass! LOL!_

_Thanks for reading! Be sure to hit that big blue button on your way out the door and let me know your thoughts! Reviews make me smile…_


	11. Chapter 11

_Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this story so far and added it to their favorites list. I'd like to give special thanks to __**Tahiri Veila Solo**_, _**imasuperhero,**_ _**Jen Lennon**_, _**IlikeKnightsInBangedUpArmor**__, __**GhibliGirl91 **__and __**Ophelia115**_ _for leaving reviews. I love receiving feedback (even criticism) as it helps me shape my writing into a better product. And … one of you will find a character's thoughts here to be familiar _

_And since this is a superhero story, it's time to turn the action back to … well … some action!_

_X_

Chapter 11

They sat clustered around the table, a _round _table, of course. What _other _type of table would any self-respecting architect have designed for the superhuman men and women who made up S.H.I.E.L.D.? Not only did the round table remind the assembled super-egos they were here for a larger purpose, but it also solved the very practical problem of seating no superhero above, or below, the other. Enormous video screens rose from desktop to ceiling, a different part of today's briefing displayed on each screen. Laser pointer in hand, Nick Fury circled the room making his presentation. By not standing in one place, no single Avenger could accuse the S.H.I.E.L.D. director of playing favorites.

Steve noted what Fury was doing. Soothe one ego here. Stroke another there. Put this arrogant S.O.B. back in their place. Smooth it over so the one slighted did not seethe. A maestro, conducting his high-strung, extremely volatile orchestra. So very different from commanding a battalion of enlisted men … and yet not so different now that he was picking things apart and scrutinizing them. The men Steve had taken command of when he'd rescued the 101st Airborne from Red Skull's fortress had served under fire together for years during the Great War. The Avengers, with the exception of Clint Hawkeye and Natasha, had only recently been assembled from their separate missions.

His eyes drifted over to the empty seat at the table. Black Widow. Someday soon they were going to have to acknowledge she wasn't ever going to wake up and find somebody else to fill that seat. Hawkeye … he might as _well _be missing. He sat next to his lovers' empty seat, as though guarding it, his expression exhausted from too many weeks sitting at her side, pleading with her to come back from whatever trauma had left her body an empty shell.

"Commander Rogers," Fury said, giving him a pointed look. "Do you care to enlighten us what you found?"

"Oh … yes," Steve said, realizing his mind had drifted away from the briefing. He stood and took the laser pointer from Fury's hand, forcing himself to walk around the room as though he were inspecting a line of troops rather than stand in one place. Fury handled the Avengers with a firm hand. If Steve was going to lead them, it was time _he _learned that same skill.

"After Red Skull blew up the technology in his fortress," Steve said. "Howard Stark became obsessed with trying to piece together alien technology and see what it did. Some of this we know…"

Steve searched for the correct button on the remote control, fumbling as the first button he hit was the wrong one and the screen slid back to an earlier slide. Stark snickered. A five-year-old had more familiarity with the technology Steve had trouble grasping. He could fly any plane, shoot any gun, or lead a battalion of men straight through the gates of hell, but he _still _hadn't figured out how to make the clock on his microwave do something other than flash _'12:00 – 12:00 – 12:00'_ no matter _how _many times he read the instruction manual.

"It's the big red one," Stark said, his dark goatee and impish grin giving him the appearance of a devil. "You can't miss it."

Steve suppressed his annoyance and hit the big red button. The picture changed to the slide he wanted to show. If he let Stark know he was succeeding in riling him, it would undermine his command.

"Thanks," Steve said, giving him a neutral response that did not match the irritation clenching in his gut. The last time he had felt this frustrated was when the USO had gone to France to perform his Captain America act for the remnants of the 101st Airborne and they'd thrown tomatoes at him. He'd responded by going AWOL and rescuing the missing members of their party, proving them all wrong. What he needed to do _now _was another show of leadership to prove himself all over again. Only this time, instead of _him _being the superhero leading a troop of ordinary men, he was the most ordinary member of the group. If he was going to win their respect, it would be his ability to coordinate successful missions which would win them over.

Or at least that was Peggy's take of the situation…

"As I was saying," Steve repeated, aiming the little red dot at the image in the center of the screen, technology so simple even _he _had quickly mastered it. "Some of this we know. The tesseract cube was retrieved from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and Howard Stark devoted the rest of his life trying to harness its power. With limited success. The fact the cube even existed inspired his research into alternative sources of energy such as the arc reactor, but he was never able to recreate or fully harness the tesseract cube as Red Skull had done."

Tony Stark gave Steve a dark look. Talk about your Oedipus complex! Steve had learned a whole lot of information he hadn't known about his nemesis from Pepper Potts, most of it knowledge that forced Steve to temper his irritation and cut him some slack. Just as Peggy had asked. That didn't mean he had to like dealing with the arrogant jerk! Steve hit the red button and advanced to the next slide, an image of a gigantic carved tree.

"Yggdrasil," Thor said. "Gateway to the nine worlds."

Steve nodded.

"Both Red Skull and Adolph Hitler were obsessed with the occult," Steve said. "While Hitler believed he could harness the _mythology _of the gods to inspire people to support his rise to power, only Red Skull understood that behind that myth lay _technology._ In that, Red Skull and Tony's father were a lot alike."

Tony Stark sat back, his expression one of disdain. "Tell us something we don't already know."

"If you _knew _it," Thor growled, his fist wrapping around Mjolnir, "then it would have been _you _who contacted Asgard. Not the mortal Jane."

"Enough!" Banner said, his voice possessing that dangerous edge they were all learning meant his other half was lurking a little too close to the surface. "If you want to bicker like teenaged girls, do so on your own time."

Steve's eyes were drawn back to the empty chair in the room. So, he noticed, were everybody else's. Natasha had been more than the token female. And also the _least _likely of the bunch to 'bicker like a girl.'

"Stark … the elder one," Steve continued, "thought his research into the cube had failed. He tried testing the cube again and again, only to have the facility he was conducting research in blow up. Some of his failures were pretty … spectacular."

Steve flipped to an image of a miles-deep crater in the ground. And then another one. Then a third one. Craters the government had officially attributed to research into nuclear weapons, but which Pepper Potts had turned up were failed tests of the tesseract cube. Tests none of them would have even known were _not _nuclear weapons had Peggy not told him about Howard Stark's obsession and the three failed tests.

"I was always told those were tests of the hydrogen bomb," Stark said, leaning forward in his seat with curiosity. "Although there were a _lot _of things about my father I'm discovering I didn't know."

"He was the father of the atomic bomb," Banner said, gesturing to the wasteland that was left after each atomic … or tesseract cube … explosion. "Why would anybody question … this?"

"Can you increase the resolution of that image?" Thor said, his voice filled with excitement. "There. That one there."

Steve smiled. They had spotted it. The anomaly he'd noticed while digging through photographs of Howard Stark's old research. He stared at the remote control, trying to remember which button told the machine to make the image bigger.

"The green one," Tony whispered, leaning towards him and pointing to the correct button. This time, there was no condescending tone to his voice. Only urgency.

The image grew larger. Although fuzzy, the bare spot at the center of each mass of tangled shrapnel was clear, smooth, and had a ring of rune-shaped writing around the landing pad.

"I'll be damned," Tony Stark whistled. "The old man succeeded and he didn't even know it."

"He thought he had the power source for a weapon," Steve said. "Not the key to opening the Bifrost … the rainbow bridge between worlds."

"There," Hawkeye said, the sharpest eyes of the group. "What's that? Blow that up."

Steve fumbled with the remote control. Green button. Green button. After a few false tries, he centered the picture and blew up the image even further. Standing in the center of one of the scenes of desolation stood a lone figure. A purple-faced demon unlike anything any of them had ever seen. Not Chitauri … but something else completely. Next to him stood a figure in a long black cloak with red trim, unnaturally tall for a human. The hood was down, revealing the face Steve knew only too well.

"Your father consorted with Thanos?" Thor roared in anger. He picked up Mjolnir and slammed it down upon the table, smashing it in two.

"My father did no such thing!" Tony Stark shouted back. He was not wearing his iron man suit at the moment, but it was only the push of a button away.

"The evidence stands before us now!" Thor shouted. He pointed at the screen. "Thanos is the enemy of Asgard."

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Nick Fury shouted, attempting to rein the two in before this devolved into another one of their fistfights. "That's not what Steve said!"

"Who is Thanos?" Banner asked.

"What does this have to do with anything?" Hawkeye asked.

"Thanos?" Steve asked. He pointed to the _other _figure standing on the screen. "My point was _that _is Herr Klaiser, who we now believe is this mysterious Other who recruited Loki to invade earth. Howard Stark's company was infiltrated and his research sabotaged. But we can document he opened Bifrost at least three times."

"Do you know what you have done?" Thor shouted at Tony Stark.

"Me?" Stark asked. "What does this have to do with _me_? I wasn't even born yet!"

Thor threw Mjolnir at Stark. Stark ducked. He pushed a button on his wrist. A high pitched whine filled the room while the briefcase he always carried with him unfolded around his torso. Thor retrieved his hammer and stalked towards Stark to clobber him. Stark powered up the pulse reactors on his gauntlets and fired at Mjolnir. The pulse bounced of Mjolnir and singed Banner. Banner began to hyperventilate. His eyes turned green.

"Guys! Guys!" Steve shouted, trying to regain control of the situation. This was _so _unlike commanding a platoon of soldiers. On the other side of the now-shattered table, Nick Fury was doing the exact same thing, trying to regain control before New York City had two superheroes duking it out mid-air and the Hulk loose in the city. Hawkeye, on the other hand, hadn't moved. He stared at the videos with an impassive expression on his face, scrutinizing every detail for whatever clues could help him awaken the woman they all had no doubt he loved, even though he refused to even speak of it.

The door to the conference room slammed open, the door opening so hard it slammed the wall behind it.

"Sir! She's awake!"

The brawling continued. Banner's growls began to take on the edge of a caged tiger. His shoulders began to bulk up, a slight tearing sound as he fought the monster trying to unleash itself. Thor launched himself at Stark and knocked him back. The Iron Man suit robotics whined, throwing the upstart Norse god off of himself as though he were a flea.

"Deputy Director Fury, Sir!" the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dressed in the scrubs of a doctor shouted. "She's awake. Sir! Agent Romanov has woken up!"

Everybody stopped, Thor mid-swing. Only the sound of Banner hyperventilating as he got his lesser half under control broke the silence of the room. The first of them to move was Hawkeye. He sprinted out the door towards the sick bay.

The rest of them followed.

X

_Note__: I've had some questions about Herr Klaiser, the Other, and Thanos. In the Avengers movie, the cloaked leader of the Chitauri who promised Loki an army to back him invading was called The Other. At the end of the movie, The Other speaks to a shadowy purple-faced figure who is named in the credits as 'Thanos.' They are two separate alien leaders of two separate species. The 'easter egg' hint at the end of Avengers is that Thanos will be the villain in an upcoming Marvel movie, which will be a game-changer because Thanos works on a galactic scale._

_In traditional Marvel canon (Ultimate Avengers), Herr Klaiser was the leader of the Chitauri charged with subjugating Earth (there was no 'Other'). He took the form of a Nazi officer after absorbing his consciousness and devouring him. Much of what Herr Klaiser/Chitauri leader did was the same as what The Other/Chitauri leader did. Therefore, I am hinting that these two are really one and the same leader since it makes my storytelling easier if there is only –one- leader of the Chitauri._

_Please! Brain-sucking shape-shifting aliens are hard enough to build a story around without giving them two (or three) different leaders! I can only research the canon on one bad guy at a time! Bad boys! LOL! I can see why Loki fanfic is so popular! _

_Hmmmm … what will readers want when Thanos finally is featured as a bad guy in an upcoming Marvel movie?_

_X_

_X_

_Natasha walked up to the big, purple faced alien and ran her fingers through his tentacles._

"_Hey, big boy," Natasha said. "Why don't you tell me all about your invasion plans?"_

_Thanos rumbled in his throat, not sure whether to kill, or kiss the attractive human female._

"_You're just here to spy on me," Thanos said. "The moment I tell you, you'll betray me. Just like Death did."_

"_But you –do- so like to play with fire, now," Natasha said. "Don't you, big guy? The Titan who fell in love with Death."_

_She slid her fingers down his purple warts, causing Thanos to shudder with desire. Danger. If there was anything he'd learned with his relationship with Death, it was that females were not to be trusted. Especially not ones nick-named the Black Widow._

"_You will pay me the proper respect, woman!" Thanos roared. He flipped Natasha on her back. She went down amazingly easy for one so agile, her pert breasts rising and falling as though she panted with desire instead of fear. It was a trick. He knew it was a trick. He placed one meaty hand around her throat, not sure whether to snap her pretty neck, or lick it._

"_You like to hurt me," Natasha purred. "Don't you?" She stretched her neck, giving him greater access. "Or do you simply wish to mark me as yours?"_

_Thanos sniffed the tasty morsel, scenting her pheromones of desire. His? Yes. He wanted her, and he would take her. He bit her neck, scarring it, leaving his mark, marking her. HIS woman! Natasha moaned, halfway between pleasure and pain, as she urged him to do more. He wanted … more. He wanted … her. He could feel the spell of the Black Widow cloud his senses as some part of his brain screamed a warning … it was –she- who was marking –him.- Bending him to her will and making him dream of what it would be like to lay pretty planets at her feet as trinkets. Yes … he would give Natasha what she wanted because it was, after all, what –he- wanted._

_Her phone rang._

"_You should get that," Thanos said._

"_Not now," Natasha said, visibly annoyed. "Finish it."_

_The phone continued to ring, breaking the mood. Natasha grabbed her phone and flipped it open._

"_Can't you see I'm in the middle of recruiting our next S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!" Natasha screamed into the phone. "How am I supposed to work under these conditions?"_

_X_

_X_

_Okay … there … I couldn't resist. So for those of you asking about Thanos and the –rest- of you pleading with me not to kill off Natasha … there you go. The reviewers made me do it! Only in fanfiction could you get such a bizarre little vignette!_

_LOL!_

_Don't forget to hit the big blue button on your way out the door! Reviews make me smile._


	12. Chapter 12

_Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this story so far and added it to their favorites list. I'd like to give special thanks to __**Tante, Ophelia115, PoetTraveler, **__and __**garnet86**__ for leaving reviews. And now, a bittersweet reflection on how things have unfolded so far._

_X_

Chapter 12

"And she has suffered no ill effects?" Peggy asked.

"Apparently," Steve said. "Banner gave her a clean bill of health."

He paused, unable to put into words that vague sense of unease he had whenever he looked into Natasha's eyes. He hadn't lived in this century long enough to get to know Black Widow or her discreet lover Hawkeye all that well. Even at the best of times, Agent Romanov was aloof. Untouchable. The only time she ever displayed any warmth was when she was under cover and friendliness was part of the role. But still…

"What bothers you, old friend?" Peggy asked. She'd taken his hand to draw him back from whatever dark path his mind had travelled down.

"I fear she will never be the same," Steve said, shrugging it off. "Whatever they did to her, it traumatized her. Banner thinks there may be some residual brain damage."

"Do you trust her to watch your back?" Peggy asked.

Steve paused, that vague feeling clamoring for attention even though he couldn't put his unease into words.

"Perhaps that's what's making me so uneasy?" Steve said. "Loki was able to use the tesseract cube to seize control of Hawkeye and Erik Selvig. Who's to say they haven't done something like that to Natasha? Only gotten more subtle about it so we would not know?"

Peggy raised her oxygen mask to her face, breathing in the nourishing air as she contemplated his concerns. Despite disappearing out of Howard Stark's life and taking time to rear a family, Peggy had never completely abandoned the spy business, remaining on Office of Strategic Services payroll long after it had become the CIA. Separate from the politics of the top-secret entity which eventually became S.H.I.E.L.D., and yet never completely away from the machinations of governments.

"Your instincts were always pretty good," Peggy said. "Even when you didn't have enough experience to put what you were feeling into words. What does your gut tell you?"

"Grounding her will alienate her," Steve said. "If nothing is wrong with her, I'll be squandering my most reliable agent. If, on the other hand, she's suffering from brain damage, she could get somebody killed."

"Are they certain it wasn't the tesseract cube?" Peggy asked.

"Thor took the cube back to Asgard when he extradited Loki," Steve said. "The All Father has assured him every gate key has been accounted for. And besides, Banner took instrument readings when they recaptured Hawkeye before the effects wore off. They could find no sign of that energy signature. Whatever made Natasha's brain flatline had nothing to do with the tesseract cube."

The mask rose to Peggy's face once more, her skin bluer than he'd ever seen it. She was leaving him, this woman he loved. She was leaving him and there was not a damned thing he could do about it. And now Natasha had been compromised. Or so he feared. For all the venom carried by the black widow, at least he'd always felt he could rely upon her to complete the mission.

"It is an old dance," Peggy said, her eyes turning to a past that didn't include _him_. "One we played many times in the OSS. Is someone a double agent? Or are they still on your side? Can you trust them? Or not? Will they sell you out to the Soviets the first chance they get? Or will they lay down their life to defend their country?"

She looked back at Steve, for a moment appearing as though she didn't recognize him. She reached out with a trembling hand, impaled by an IV they'd jabbed into her vein to force fluids, and placed it upon Steve's cheek.

"So beautiful, my perfect soldier," Peggy said, the British accent which had all but disappeared under decades of life as an American citizen growing thicker as she spoke. "And so cruel, to pull you out of your time just because we needed you more now than we did back then."

She had that look about her. That _same _look Lieutenant Hernandez had gotten in his eyes when he'd looked over Steve's shoulder and said there was a woman waiting to guide him someplace where only the bravest of the brave were welcome. She was leaving him, this woman he loved. And there wasn't a damned thing Steve could do about it. He sniffed, ramming down the lump which rose in his throat as he stared into Peggy's deep brown eyes, the only part of her that time hadn't ravaged. She was looking at right at him, but it was no longer _him _she saw.

She blinked, looking just for a moment confused, before the ever-present oxygen mask was lifted to her face and inhaled, helping to clear the fog that threatened to consume her mind. Her son had warned him that sometimes Peggy got forgetful, but Steve didn't think that was what was going on. Peggy's mind was as sharp as ever. Part of it had simply begun to make the journey the rest of her would soon make into the place Thor called Valhalla.

They were quiet, Peggy's hand still upon his cheek. Steve closed his eyes and pressed his hand over hers, the moment of silence stretching between them as he felt her icy hand gradually warm beneath the heat of his own. It would not be long, he knew. He suspected she only lingered for him. Soon, not even Peggy's will would be enough to keep her here. It was a miracle she had survived long enough to cross paths with him a second time. Ninety-four years old. Even in this day and age of miracle lifespans, Peggy had lived a very long life.

"She favors you," Peggy said at long last.

Steve opened his eyes. Peggy stared over his shoulder not at a Valkyrie or angel this time, but to a sketch taped upon her wall done by her granddaughter. Him, seated across from the woman he loved, heads pressed together in conversation. Bernice could have only caught the quickest glimpse of them in this pose the time she had peeked her head into the room and seen them here together. A talented young artist with an eye to recreate in breathtaking detail any scene she gazed upon but one time. A rare, and useful, talent. He had pulled some strings to make sure she would get a position which would make the most of her gift. But she was not Peggy.

"She is very young," Steve said at last, dismissing the insidious thought which had taken up residence in his mind the first time he had lay eyes upon the young woman and whispered to him at odd hours of the night. He _didn't _add, 'and she is not you.'

Peggy lifted the mask to her face once more, the wheeze audible in her lungs as she struggled to inhale the clarified air pumped in by the oxygen mask.

"She has been shielded from the ugly reality in which you and I both walk," Peggy said at last. "I was not entirely successful sheltering my children from my work. There were incidents … times we feared my cover was blown and the family was relocated for safety."

Steve listened, engrossed. Peggy had always been tight-lipped about what she had done for their government after he had been gone. Until a few weeks ago, she'd let him think she'd simply retired as Fury had led him to believe the first time he'd told him that Peggy was still alive. The hesitation Steve had noticed in Fury's voice, the things he had known Fury wasn't telling him. Knowledge Peggy would take with her to the grave.

The soft hiss of the oxygen was the only sound as she pulled air into her lungs and exhaled.

"Bill was such a good husband," Peggy said, her eyes taking on that far away appearance once more. "He always had a story to tell the kids about why their mother was suddenly unable to go to their school play. Bill claimed he didn't have the stomach for cloak and dagger, but he covered for my absences without complaint."

Another breath, longer this time. Each time Peggy breathed, it took longer to get enough oxygen to form her thoughts.

"The kids weren't stupid," Peggy said. "Nowadays it's common for women to work outside the home. But back then, women were expected to sit at home and bake. Bill was always a much better mother than I was."

"But your children adore you," Steve said. He had met three of Peggy's five children and three of her grandchildren over the course of visits with her. Including Bernice. All of them had her determined set of chin and brown eyes.

"They do," Peggy said, her lips curving up into that wolfish smile that even 67 years away from him couldn't steal away. "But they also heeded my warning when they became old enough to understand I did not wish any of my children to follow in my footsteps. They sheltered their children from the ugly realities you and I know."

"I understand," Steve said. Peggy wished for him to keep Bernice in the dark. It was the right thing to do.

"No you don't," Peggy said. "When Bernice was in high school, her aptitude tests showed she has a full eidetic memory. Not merely a photographic one. The ability to recreate in intricate detail not only things she sees, hears, and understands, but also accurately reproduce things she does _not _understand. Military recruiters got their hands on those scores and tried to convince her to enlist."

"You discouraged her?" Steve asked.

"Yes," Peggy said. "I didn't want to watch them…"

Tears welled in Peggy's eyes.

"I didn't want to see them steal her love of art they way they had done with … you," Peggy whispered. She lifted the mask to her face and coughed, trying to catch her breath.

"It wasn't stolen," Steve said. "I just … set it aside."

"You never drew another picture after they put you out in the field," Peggy said. "The day you rescued the 107th Infantry, you stopped drawing. Not even a monkey on a wire."

"I…" Steve said.

"You never drew another picture," Peggy said.

"I drew … one," Steve said.

Peggy. Standing in front of a map of Europe. Pins showing the exact location of the fortresses Red Skull had scattered throughout Europe. A map he had recreated from memory.

Eidetic memory.

The mask was drawn to her face once more, longer this time. He suspected she was lingering on purpose, to collect her thoughts before he could interrupt her and deny what they both knew to be true. After the Pentagon had realized he was capable of leading a unit into the belly of the beast and blow it all to hell, they had put his talents to good use all right. Only every single picture he had drawn _after _that day had been to draw from memory enemy assets on a map.

"She inherited the ability from my sweet Bill," Peggy said at last. She gave him a wry grin. "Bernice inherited her love of art … and her eidetic memory … from my husband."

"He was an artist?" Steve said. "I thought he was…"

"A milkman," Peggy said. "Yes. Of course he was. But just because you are one thing doesn't mean you can't also be another. Isn't that true, Captain America?"

"Yes," Steve said. He glanced to the faded, black and white photograph of the man Peggy had married. A tall, skinny man with a mop of blonde hair upon his head, carrying a carton full of glass milk bottles. A man she had married because Bill, of all the men who had sought her hand, had reminded her of _him._ And yet, it was obvious she had loved this man dearly and looked forward to rejoining him in whatever world lay beyond this one. Peggy had let go and moved on with her life. She wished for him to do the same.

"Don't let them steal that part of Bernice that I love," Peggy said. "Promise me."

"I'll call Pepper," Steve said. "I had no idea…"

"Don't," Peggy said. She brought the mask to her lips once more, only this time he could see beneath the clear plastic that she smiled. "It is where her natural inclinations lay. And with the knowledge we are not alone in the universe, there is no way to shield _any _of our children from the ugly reality in which we both walk. All I ask is that, when they discover what use her talents can be put, that you don't allow them to turn her into a weapon."

"I promise," Steve said. He took her cold, blue hand and placed it over his heart. "You know I would lay down my life to protect your children. All of them."

Peggy sighed, some tension leaving her body he hadn't realized until now was there. "It would grieve me greatly if I were to look down from heaven and see my sweet Bernice is as lost and lonely as _you._"

They sat in silence, the blue tint to Peggy's skin giving her an elfish appearance, like the movie Steve had watched one night about a military incursion into a world full of blue people who worshipped trees. Back when he had first met Peggy, she had been the one versed in the art of war and he the sensitive, artistic kid who didn't know when to back down from a fight. Now, it appeared their roles had reversed and it was _she _who wished for _him_ to stop fighting long enough to look and see what grew in the forest.

"I admire him, the son," Peggy said at last. "Howard's son. For all his genius and love of a good fight, he knows when to say 'no' to the military. I think my Bernice will fit in there, don't you?"

No? Yes. If there was one thing Tony Stark liked rubbing everyone's face in, from the Pentagon to Congress to S.H.I.E.L.D. to the United Nations to NATO, it was that he had enough power and resources at his disposal to simply turn his back and tell the world to go to hell if he didn't like the way something was going down. It was a trait which infuriated him … and which he also admired. The way Tony Stark drew a line in the sand and refused to let anyone cross it.

"They'll take good care of her," Steve said. "Pepper gave me her word. They won't hand her anything she doesn't earn, but they'll shape her natural inclinations and encourage her to grow."

"That's all I ask," Peggy said.

Her eyelids drooped as her words began to jumble together. She was tired, this fragile shell which was all that remained of the woman he had once loved, and lost. She was tired and she needed to rest.

"Let me help you into bed," Steve said, picking her up as though she weighed nothing at all and settling her into the bed like the fragile old woman she really was. He tucked the covers up around her chin, pushed the button to summons the nurse, and helped her arrange the oxygen mask upon Peggy's face so she would not asphyxiate in her sleep. She was tired and she wished to rejoin her husband, but he was not ready to let her go just yet. He waited, reassuring herself that her breathing had become deep and even, her breath fogging the plastic of the mask, before he gathered his things to go.

"Sleep tight," Steve whispered, pressing his lips to the cool, paper-thin skin of her forehead. "I'll be back to see you again. I promise."

X

_Note: A bittersweet note. Don't forget to hit that big blue button. Reviews make my day!_


	13. Chapter 13

_Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this story so far and added it to their favorites list. I'd like to give special thanks to __**AoiKuroNekoSan, **__**lazarus73, Arrows the Wolf**_, _**KimchixBurger**_, _**Ophelia115, **__and __**LazyNezumi**_ _for leaving reviews. And now it's time for Bernice to have that big job interview._

_X_

Chapter 13

"Miss Potts will see you now," the secretary said.

Bernice lurched to her seat, the bagel and lox she'd foolishly eaten for breakfast this morning on the way over here sitting like a lump of clay in her esophagus. She grabbed her portfolio and teetered towards the enormous carved mahogany double doors which separated the lair of the Chief Executive Officer of all of Stark Industries from the rest of the world. Her three inch heels snagged on a phantom in the carpet, threatening to catapult her right into the secretary's desk. Whatever had possessed her to wear such foolish footwear on the most important job interview she would ever have?

The secretary opened the door, gliding in before her with a stack of folders. Bernice wandered in behind her, awestruck at the enormity of the room and the vast skyline opening up behind the desk. The office was sleek, stylish, and ultra-modern. Everything Jacquie represented and Bernice did not. How had _she _ended up with this interview and not her more deserving friend?

"It's good to see you again, Miss Rosenthal," Pepper Potts said, rising from her sleek leather chair to shake Bernice's hand. Bernice jumbled her portfolio and her purse, muttering apologies the entire time at her lack of grace, until she had a hand free to take the long, slender hand. "Why don't you have a seat?"

"T-Thank you," Bernice said, forcing herself not to stammer like a blithering idiot. She sat in the oversized leather chair, sinking into its depths like a toddler into a couch. Even with the three inch heels, her feet didn't quite reach the floor.

"I took the liberty of doing a little research before our interview," Miss Potts said, gesturing casually towards an enormous stack of folders neatly piled on one corner of her desk. "You come highly recommended."

"All that's about me?" Bernice squeaked. "I mean ... me?"

She forced her voice to sound calm and low, a trick they'd tried to teach her when she'd taken an acting class as an elective her first semester. She was a lousy actress. But the technique served her well whenever she had to wait on an obnoxious customer at the coffee shop and _pretend _she didn't want to smash in their face. Stark Industries produced the most cutting edge technology, alternative energy products, and now that Earth had been invaded by aliens, once more it was producing offensive weapons. Bold. She must be bold. Or at least not stammer like a meek little mouse!

Miss Potts pulled a thin, newer folder off the top of the pile and flipped it open. The ones beneath it were old and a much darker color. As though they had been dug out of some storage bin buried deep within some musty basement. She flipped through the contents and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

"I have a letter of recommendation here from a Professor Crowley," Miss Potts said, her blue eyes filled with interest. "He says here you have the sharpest eye for the human form of any student he's ever had."

"Professor Crowley said that about me?" Bernice asked. She craned her neck enough to see the Academy of Visual Arts letterhead, but resisted the urge to snatch the letter out of Miss Potts hand and read it for herself.

Miss Potts smiled, a schooled gesture obviously intended to put her at ease. It wasn't the smile which helped Bernice relax, but the way the freckles just barely visible beneath Miss Pott's makeup subtly matched her ginger red hair. Pepper. All of a sudden the nickname everyone used to refer to Virginia Potts clicked. Bernice's mouth made a surprised little 'o' as her mind put two and two together.

Miss Potts shuffled through several more papers. It began to dawn on Bernice that there were far more papers in that folder than she had submitted along with her resume when Miss Potts secretary had first telephoned her to set up an appointment. Including references from people she hadn't asked to _give _her references … like old sour-puss Professor Crowley. She'd always thought he didn't like her. She made a mental note to thank the taciturn professor for saying such nice things.

"Your grade point average is impeccable, except for one little hiccup with acting class your first semester," Miss Potts said. "Both your current employer, and your last one, have attested that you are a reliable worker. So now I guess it's time to look at your portfolio."

Bernice unzipped the case and pulled out her best modern art piece, a bold geometric piece inspired by Vasily Kandinsky. Miss Potts gave the piece an unenthusiastic 'hmm' and moved on to a colorful piece in the style of Marc Chagall. Another noncommittal 'hmm.' A twisted piece inspired by Edvard Munch, a squarish group of figures inspired by Picasso, a piece with prominent brush strokes inspired by Van Gogh. All the best modern artists that Jacquie could flawlessly recreate and twist into her own style, but which Bernice had never found all that inspiring. She had painted these pieces because it had been required for her art classes. Not because she enjoyed it. And by the neutral expression on Miss Potts face, she knew it.

"What else do you have?" Miss Potts asked. Her fancy Louboutin slipped on and off her slender heel, tapping in time to an internal clock whose time Bernice knew she was wasting.

"These are some of my human form portraits," Bernice said, pulling an assortment of sketches, pastels, and a single oil painting out of her portfolio.

Miss Potts flipped through the pictures, a few of them catching her interest more than the recreations of modern art. She paused at one picture. A picture Bernice had painted of her grandmother.

"I believe your Professor Crowley was right," Miss Potts said. "What else do you have for me?"

"Um…" Bernice stammered. "These are … um … my professors say this isn't really art, per se. But, well, they're the first works I ever got paid to do. Sort of. Actually, I swapped off my artwork for upgrades to Photoshop CS5 so I could do more of these for my friends."

Bernice pulled out some digital concept art she'd made for a friend who was a software developer for video games. A post-apocalyptic fantasy game where soldiers and mythological creatures clashed over a wasted landscape. Part-cyborg soldiers. Troll-like creatures. Armor-clad dinosaurs trained to act as horses. Strange airplanes and tanks unlike anything currently on earth. All stuff she'd just pulled out of her brain after an all-night party laughing with friends, talking about what kinds of fantastical creatures her friend should program into his video game and how many 'vitality points' each weapon they dreamed up should possess. There had been much alcohol involved, but it was some of her favorite artwork and she had included it in today's portfolio on a whim.

Miss Potts paused over one of the pictures and looked up at her, giving her a knowing smile.

"How much do you know about Steve Rogers?" Miss Potts asked.

"Huh … um," Bernice started to choke and then caught herself as she suddenly remembered Miss Potts _knew _the archetype she'd had lurking in the back of her mind when she'd crafted the main hero for her friends video game. A part-cyborg super-soldier whose human half resembled the man she spent _far_ too much time daydreaming about.

"Know? Steve? Um … he's just a friend of my grandmothers. Um. I don't really know him very well. My grandmother used to serve with _his _grandfather during World War II."

Miss Potts ran her thumb over the picture, scrutinizing it.

"Where did you get the idea for the technology?" Miss Potts asked.

"I … um …" Bernice stammered. "Well … it' s _not _like I'm an … um … groupie … or anything like that … um … but um … well … _everybody _knows who Iron Man is!"

Miss Pott's face lit up in a smile which appeared to be all too amused at her expense. What was so funny about Steve wearing a cybernetic Iron Man type suit? It wasn't like she'd made it red or anything. It was camouflaged. Like a soldier's armor _should _be!

Miss Potts leaned back in her chair and pulled another folder from the pile on her desk, flipping through it. One of the _old _folders. Really old. Bernice had no idea what records they could have about her that could be possibly anywhere near that age. Baptismal records? Birth certificates? She knew a security clearance was needed to work here, but really? How far back did they need to dig?

Miss Potts threw the folder back on the desk and sat upright in her chair, her expression purely professional now.

"Let me be frank, Miss Rosenthal," Pepper said. She gestured around her office. "The artwork here at Stark Industries reflects my own personal style which, as I can judge from the works of art you first presented, you are quite aware of. I suspect you are _also _aware of the fact your interpretation of modern art lacks, how shall I put this delicately, inspiration? You painted those paintings because it was an assignment you had to do, not because you loved it. Am I correct in that assumption?"

Bernice's heart sank all the way down to the floor. "Yes."

"Just because your grandmother used to work for Tony Stark's father isn't going to give you a free pass into the inner circle of Stark Industries," Miss Potts said. "Not even with a recommendation from Steve Rogers."

Bernice felt like she was going to throw up. She'd blown it.

"I understand."

"Stark Industries is a company where people follow their passion," Miss Potts said. "If you're going to make your tenure here at Stark Industries a successful one, you must be doing something you love, or not at all. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes," Bernice said, forcing her expression to remain neutral even though she wanted to burst into tears.

"Good," Miss Potts said. She grabbed a piece of paper from the stack of folders and scribbled something across the page. Bernice sat, silently, not sure whether she was supposed to get up and slink out gracefully, or wait to be dismissed. Miss Potts reached over with one hand in a practiced motion while still writing and hit the intercom button of her telephone.

"Miss Miller," Miss Potts called, not looking up from her note. "Please set up orientation for Miss Rosenthal starting first thing Monday morning. And I want her enrolled in the junior leadership skills track, as well."

"Yes, Miss Potts," a voice said over the telephone. The secretary Bernice had met at the door.

Bernice's mouth opened and closed, not sure she had heard correctly. Hadn't Miss Potts just said she wasn't giving her a free pass?

Miss Potts finished whatever she was scribbling. She grabbed Bernice's digital concept art of the soldier who looked like Steve Rogers wearing a cybernetic suit, paper clipped it to her note, and shoved it into the folder. Rising from her chair like a jaguar, she offered her outstretched hand. Bernice stood up as well. This was it. Curtly dismissed.

"I'm assigning you to the CAD/CAM design unit of our weapons technology engineering department," Miss Potts said. "With the sudden shift at Stark Industries _back _to designing offensive weapons to defend Earth, we find ourselves short of artists capable of translating the things Mr. Stark dreams up into visual representations to procure funding. You'll be designing concept art and blueprints of _real _equipment onto _real _soldiers in hypothetical alien warfare situations which few people on Earth have yet to imagine. Does this sound like something you could do passionately?"

Bernice stood with her mouth opening and closing, her ears hearing the words but her brain refusing to process what Miss Potts was telling her. She was being hired?

"Y-y-yes Miss Potts!" Bernice exclaimed, trying her hardest not to squeal like a little girl. "You won't be disappointed!"

"Good," Miss Potts said, her smile friendly. "Welcome to Stark Industries."

She shook Bernice's hand. With a nod towards Miss Miller who had come back into the room to escort her out, Pepper sat back down and grabbed a folder off a second stack of paperwork. Dismissed. Bernice's 10 minutes of fame was over.

She managed to wait until the elevator doors closed before shouting, "Whoo-hoo!"

X

_Note: It was time for a little happiness! _

_BTW: True eidetic memory (photographic + sensory) is rare. Anyone who has it is usually snagged by recruiters either in high school or college (the CIA and FBI are allowed to recruit on any college campus that receives federal funding, but the military is allowed to recruit in high school). Most people aren't aware that Big Brother is scrutinizing their kids test scores in the public schools. I only know this because the military tried to snag -me- when I was 17 because I scored high logical/spatial ability (not nearly as impressive as eidetic memory). I can't imagine how much pressure they would have put on somebody with Bernice's skill to enlist!_

_Be sure to hit the big blue button and tell me what you think! Reviews make me smile!_


	14. Chapter 14

_I'd like to thank everyone who has read this story so far, and all of those who've add this to their favorites and story alert lists. I'd especially like to thank__** Jen Lennon, garnet86, Arrows the Wolf, Mystewitch, Penny Tortoiseshell, AoiKuroKenoSan,**__**IlikeKnightsInBangedUpArmor, Rittanicus, TitaniumA, **__and __** Katya Jade**__ for leaving reviews. Reviews make me smile and, when you point out plot holes or give me hints about how you perceive a story should flow, it helps make my writing better. Thanks for reading!_

_ X_

The roar of the Black Hawk helicopter as it lurched through the pea soup of the East River was enough to rattle Steve's teeth. Lightning tore through the sky, giving the roiling sea below a surreal glare. He tightened his gloves so nothing could tear them off, a necessary precaution given the stunt they were about to attempt. From the north, Iron Man approached flying mere inches above the waves. From the east, Thor attempted the same maneuver. The two super-egos had been behaving for almost three days now. If the rivals could continue that truce, perhaps this mission would go down without a hitch?

"Remind me why we're doing this again, Captain?" Hawkeye shouted into the microphone, Steve's headphones making it possible to communicate above the roar of the engines.

"Training mission," Steve said. The question was rhetorical. It was the closest the taciturn archer would ever come to complaining about weather conditions.

As if on cue, a crosswind picked up the Black Hawk helicopter as though it were a Rubber Duckie floating in a child's bath and tossed it to one side. Steve grabbed the wrist straps, thankful he'd had a light lunch. Otherwise, it would have been on the floor. When Red Skull had escaped his fortress in a modified rocket with an enormous airplane propeller on the top, the technology had been cutting edge. Now the dragon-fly like hovering technology was common, but it had a much less secure feeling than the feel of Steve's harrier jet. The fact their pilot kept joking about the chopper just waiting for an excuse to drop them out of the sky like a rock didn't help matters any.

"Natasha," Steve said. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

Natasha gave him that emotionless expression she'd had ever since she'd woken up from her coma. Agent Romanov had always been a bit of a cold fish, but ever since the Chitauri had done … whatever it was they had done to her, she'd been even _more _cold and emotionless than ever before. Steve glanced over at Hawkeye and noted the worried furrow of his brow. Today's exercise was a test to see whether Black Widow was still capable of performing under battle conditions. She'd passed every simulation they'd thrown at her so far. Today … was real.

Sort of…

It was a real test, just one outside the current mission of the Avengers. A prison riot. Normally of little interest given people expected them to fend off extra-terrestrial invasions these days, not rescue a few guards from prisoners demanding concessions from the governor.

"What's that?" Steve asked, pointing to a small island adjacent to the larger 413 acre island they were rapidly approaching. "It's not on our briefing map." He noted the spotlights, barbed wire, and guard towers around a tiny bunker perched on what was little more than a rock. Unless you flew directly overhead, the tiny island appeared to be part of the larger Rikers Island detention center.

"The Raft," Hawkeye said. "Home to the worst of the worst. Since you took down Red Skull, a whole hoard of wannabe bad guys cropped up in the world. That's where we keep them on ice."

Steve watched the tiny bump in the middle of the ocean pass beneath them, so small that if you blinked you wouldn't even notice it. Unlike the larger island to its west, which was connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway, the Raft was totally isolated. Super-villains? Would such a facility have been able to hold Red Skull? Or the even _worse _specter which had slithered into the present day, Herr Klaiser. If it really _was _Herr Klaiser hidden beneath the black-and-red trimmed robe of The Other and not some new ruler who had risen to take his place. It _had_, after all, been sixty-seven years. Nobody knew how long the sentient version of the lizard men was capable of surviving.

"Thor, Iron Man," Steve called into the radio. "What's your ETA?"

"Twenty seconds," Tony Stark called over the radio.

"Thor _already_ in position," Thor called, his voice smug.

Steve gave Hawkeye and Natasha a nod.

"Hover over the target," Steve called over the intercom to the pilot. "The second we're clear, get the heck out of here. The prisoners got into one of the gun cabinets."

"I thought only the guards in the towers were supposed to be armed?" the pilot asked. "So things like that wouldn't happen?"

A ping hit the chopper. Seconds later, a second ping answered the question for him.

"Good thing I've got me bulletproof underwear," the co-pilot called over the intercom. "Or I'd be singing soprano right about now."

Whereas most soldiers wore armor to cover their chests because that was where they tended to get shot, pilots were usually shot at from the ground below. They therefore wore special bulletproof briefs resembling bicycle shorts that, quite literally, prevented them from getting shot in the ass. Today's pilots weren't their regular S.H.I.E.L.D. pilots, but the New York State National Guard.

"Let's do this," Steve said, noting his own feeling of exhilaration as they circled the outer edges of the compound looking for a suitable landing spot. Unlike the other so-called 'super' missions S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent him on lately, this mission felt familiar. A known entity … humans. Their reasons for rioting … three guards had allegedly stood by while thugs from one gang of prisoners beat up a prisoner who had filed suit in federal court about inhumane treatment and overcrowding. Rikers Island was not a long-term prison, but a short-term detention center for 14,000 or so inmates awaiting trial or sentencing. Today … today Steve hoped the Avengers would be able to do something with all of their firepower besides beat the bad guys into submission.

'_Do you want to kill Nazi's?' _Doctor Erskine had asked.

'_No,' _he'd answered. _'Our guys are all over there getting killed. I thought I should be over there too.'_

'_We've got lots of big, strong men over there,' _Doctor Erskine had said. _'Perhaps what we need is a little guy.'_

"Coming up on the drop point," the pilot shouted, bringing Steve's attention back to the present day. "You'd better be quick. I don't know how long I can hold this thing steady in this crosswind."

Several more shots pinged off the exterior of the chopper and stopped. Black Hawks were lightly armored, but they wouldn't withstand heavy gunfire. Whoever was shooting at them either had lousy aim, or only shot at them enough to get them to back off. There couldn't be much ammunition available to the inmates, so every dud shot was that much less likely to get one of his men killed today.

"Everybody in position," Steve called, slipping his clip onto the cable stretching from a hook inside the chopper to the end of an arrow aimed by Hawkeye. Natasha did the same. The co-pilot unclipped his seatbelt and made his way to the back of the plane to unclip the cable the moment they were clear so the Black Hawk wouldn't remained tethered to the guard tower like a dog on a leash. They were ready.

"Go!"

Natasha was the first to go, sliding down the slender rope as though it were a zip line. Hawkeye went second, right behind her. Ever since Natasha had been injured, Clint refused to leave her side. Steve gave the co-pilot a thumbs-up and leaped out behind them. A single shot went off as each of them slid to the ground, but none of them had been hit. Either that, or the prisoner hadn't really been aiming for them. Steve noted the position the shooting had come from. Hawkeye was doing the same, an arrow already strung into his bow. The non-exploding kind. They were under strict orders to avoid deadly force unless absolutely necessary.

"Whirligig, this is the Captain," Steve called into his radio. "You are free and clear."

"Roger," the pilot said. The slender cable fell to the ground, the chopper banking sharp right and gaining elevation. Nobody shot at it. It was of little interest to the prison defenders. Steve gave the hand signal to follow and led the others to the south wall.

"Thor?" Steve called. "It's show time."

An arc of lightning split the sky, this time too directed to be natural. Steve's hair stood on end inside his protective suit, reacting to the increase in static electricity in the air. The City had killed the power to this particular sub-facility the moment they'd received news of the riot, only powering the non-compromised outer walls to keep the prisoners contained. Thor's lightning show was designed to light up the entire east side of the facility, distracting the rioting prisoners from the teams coming at them from the north and south.

"Now," Steve said, pointing to the barbed wire fence. Natasha pulled out bolt cutters and sliced through the first layer of fence, holding it open for them to get through. No bullets rained down upon them. So far, the distraction was holding.

"Iron Man?" Steve called. "Act two."

"Roger," Stark called out. "As in Roger ten-four gotcha understand, not Rogers, as in Steve Rogers, bossman."

The blast from a pulse reactor repeatedly hitting the ground just in front of the north wall of the building without damaging it drowned out Steve's retort about remaining professional. He squelched his annoyance and signaled Natasha to cut a hole in the second line of the fence. Steve slid through first, his shield held in front of him to protect the others from stray gunfire. None came. So far the distraction was holding. They raced through the dark to the wall of the building, pressing themselves against the shadows.

"Natasha," Steve signaled with his hands. He pointed to where a man with a shotgun wearing a bright orange jump suit patrolled, aiming in the general direction where Iron Man plied his distracting little light show but not firing. Either the prisoner knew the gauge of rifle he had was useless against Iron Man's armor, or he didn't wish to draw Iron Man's attention to him and make himself a target. Probably a little of both. Bravery in the line of duty and a life of crime _usually _didn't go hand in hand.

Natasha stalked catlike in the dark, a darker shadow amongst the shadows. Within seconds, she disappeared from view even though Steve knew she was still there. It was what made the Black Widow so deadly, her ability to appear to be one thing and be something altogether different. Perhaps that was what had him so worried? He glanced over to where Hawkeye had an arrow already drawn, ready to let it fly into the brain of the gunman if he so much as flinched. This was Natasha's show today. Her chance to prove she could still produce under fire.

Lightning cleaved the sky, the natural kind, not the kind produced by Thor. The gunman spotted Natasha before she was into position, the timing of the natural fireworks bad luck. The gunman swung his gun towards Natasha and froze. Steve saw the expression on the man's face.

"Wait!" Steve hissed, knocking Hawkeye's arm milliseconds before he let the arrow fly, causing it to miss the mark.

The arrow whizzed past the gunman's ear. The gunman lifted the rifle above his head and swung the butt of it towards Natasha's head.

"Shit!" Hawkeye hissed, another arrow already out of his quiver and strung.

"Wait!" Steve ordered, grabbing Hawkeye by the shoulder. "Let her handle it."

Natasha deflected the weapon and delivered a side kick to the gunman's stomach. The gunman grabbed her shoulders. She broke free with a roundhouse block and hit him in the face and groin. The man tried to give her a right hook and she deflected it to one side, using the momentum of the gunman's own body moving forward to yank him to the ground. Leaping onto his back, she pinned his arms behind him and shoved his face into the ground so he couldn't call for help.

"You could have gotten her killed!" Hawkeye snarled at Steve.

"He wasn't going to shoot her," Steve said.

"How the hell did _you _know?" Hawkeye hissed in rage.

"I just … knew," Steve said. "Let her hunt."

Hawkeye glared at him, but nodded to where Natasha had disappeared into the doorway. The party was going to continue, with or without them. Steve gave the hand signal for Hawkeye to secure the first prisoner and followed Natasha inside. There were two more prisoners on the floor, one unconscious, the other holding his genitals. Steve clapped handcuffs on both of them and hurried after their huntress.

"Thor," Steve called into the radio. "More fireworks?"

"Your wish is my command," Thor radioed back. His answer was accompanied by a spectacular light show visible through the barred windows.

Hawkeye crept behind him, signaling the gunman was secure. Steve didn't doubt the prisoner would have a few extra bruises on him than Natasha had left him with for daring to point a rifle at his girl. Hawkeye had been really defensive about answering questions about Agent Romanov, but Steve could tell something was worrying him. Perhaps the _same _vague sense of unease that was worrying Steve?

The sound of voices shouting grew louder. Gunfire. And bullets ricocheting.

"Damn!" Steve hissed. "Everybody … in. Now!"

"On it!" Stark shouted over the radio.

They ran towards the main cellblock where sixty prisoners were holding three guards and several prisoners from a rival cellblock hostage. The blast from Stark's pulse reactor pounded through one wall while lightning arced through the metal coverings of a window and melted them, Thor effortlessly kicking in the melted bars and flying through. Hawkeye ran past him, into the pig pile of flying fists and kicks where Natasha was in the thick of things.

"We surrender!" a voice shouted above the other noise.

Numerous prisoners threw themselves to the ground, arms over their heads.

"Excuse me," Stark said, punching out a particularly aggressive looking prisoner and knocking him across the main common area. "Two. Pardon me. Three." Steve could hear the humor in Stark's voice even through the mechanical distortion caused by his Iron Man helmet.

"Thou shalt … clank … not take … clank … the … clank," Thor grunted with every swing of his hammer, "All Fathers … clank … name … clank … in vain … clank!"

"Sixteen," Stark continued, counting aloud for every prisoner he punched. "Seventeen."

"I've smote more … clank … than you … clank," Thor grunted.

"Natasha!" Hawkeye cried out, pointing to the balcony above.

A prisoner leaped down from the balcony. He grabbed Natasha as he fell, slashing at her throat with a primitive shank. Steve saw the look on the prisoners face. He meant it. This was one of the bad apples. Hawkeye rushed to help.

"Stark!" Steve shouted and pointed to Natasha. She froze at the unexpected feel of the prisoner from above suddenly landing on top of her. Hawkeye leaped towards the prisoner who most definitely _did _mean to slit her throat.

One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one …

Hawkeye leaped on top of the prisoner.

Natasha finally reacted. She threw off the prisoner, twisted the shank out of his hand, and stabbed him in the jugular vein with his own shank.

Hawkeye plowed into the prisoner and knocked him to one side.

Steve went to breathe a sigh of relief.

Natasha continued upward and caught Hawkeye mid-air, flipping him flat on his back. Hawkeye did not resist her. She raised the knife to plunge it into Hawkeye's heart. Hawkeye stared up at her, his expression confused. Steve looked into Natasha's eyes. What looked back possessed no emotion. No emotion at all. The black widow spider about to devour her mate.

"No!" Steve shouted. He launched himself at Natasha. The knife came down. It didn't even occur to Hawkeye to fight.

Tony Stark got to her a millionth of a second before Steve did, knocking her hand aside as the shank made contact with Hawkeyes chest. Natasha shrieked, her ordinarily catlike movements gone as she clawed at Stark like a women gone mad.

"Natasha!" Steve shouted. "Stand down!"

Natasha looked at him, no recognition in her eyes. No sweat beaded her brow. Her chest did not rise and fall like a woman winded. She was a machine. A killing machine. Steve had watched the Black Widow hunt many times, but this was the first time he'd seen her turn into a cold blooded killer. One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one-.

"Stand down!" he shouted again.

Natasha blinked. Her skin flushed as she looked down at her hands and noticed the shank she had almost used to kill her lover. Shaking, she dropped the weapon upon the ground.

"Clint!" she cried out. She dropped to her knees, frantically pawing at the torn clothing on his chest.

"I'm okay," Hawkeye said, glaring at Steve. "I'm fine. I shouldn't have gotten in your way like that."

Natasha checked his chest, his hands, his face. For the first time in all the time he'd known her, Steve saw the Black Widow cry. Hawkeye got up and gathered her into his arms, glaring at Steve.

"You should have just let me shoot the guy," Hawkeye glared at him.

Steve opened his mouth to contradict him, then shut it, the words unsaid. In the exact same situation, who was to say _he _wouldn't have mistaken a second person jumping on him from the rear for an enemy?

"Twenty-six," Tony Stark said proudly, slipping handcuffs onto the prisoners laying prone upon the floor.

"Twenty-seven," Thor said, giving Stark a smirk as he, likewise, rounded up the prisoners.

"-I- had to put a leash on Natasha," Stark said. "That makes us even."

"You owe me a fifth of mead!" Thor growled. "That was the wager."

"Guys!" Steve shouted. "Skip the posturing and get moving! You can buy _each other _a keg of whatever liquor you want _after _we're done cleaning up this mess."

"It sounds agreeable to me," Stark said. "If it's okay with you."

"Tonight the victors shall feast!" Thor said, raising his hammer. "As they do in Valhalla! Natasha! You must join us! Tonight is your victory, as well!"

Natasha agreed, as did Hawkeye. They made plans as they dragged prisoners back into their holding cells and locked the doors, turning the facility back over to the New York Department of Corrections. The Avengers strolled out into the waiting transport van, slapping each other on the back for a mission accomplished.

"You going to join us, choirboy?" Tony Stark asked Steve, his dark eyes glittering with mirth as he pulled off his Iron Man helmet.

"I can't get drunk," Steve said. "But why don't you guys all have a round on me?"

"Your loss," Stark said. They all climbed into the van, leaving Steve alone in front of the detention center.

"Is there a problem, Sir?" the Warden asked.

"No," Steve said. "I just wanted some time to think."

He walked back over the causeway and caught a cab, playing over again and again in his mind the scene where Natasha had almost killed her lover. Hawkeye had knocked into her just as her attacker did. Under the same circumstances, Steve would have fended off all attackers just as instinctively. Her actions were totally understandable. In the end, she had caught herself before she'd made a fatal error. As far as tests went, Natasha had proven herself tonight.

So why did he feel so uneasy?

X

_Note: Thanks for reading everyone! Don't forget to hit that big blue button on your way out!_


	15. Chapter 15

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including __**Mystewitch, Penny Tortoiseshell, Katya Jade, Arrows the Wolf, garnet86, Jen Lennon **__and __**rEdRoSeSiNaUgUsT. **__I'd especially like to thank those readers who've given feedback to help me walk that fine line of breathing life into an 'ordinary' heroine amongst Titans who is sweet without being Mary-Sue perfect, emotionally strong without possessing a superpower, and smart without being a genius. Keep the feedback coming, please! Feedback helps me improve my craft._

_Thanks to __**Qweb**__ who pointed out the little booboo about the Andrews Sisters (I won't elaborate more … it's been fixed!)_

_A special bonus prize to __**AoiKuroNekoSan, **__who was the only person to pick up on the little joke back in Chapter 13 about Bernice creating a video game concept character of Steve wearing an Iron Man suit and then showing it to the CEO of Stark Industries to get a job. Pepper is well aware of (and trying to smooth over) the rivalry between Tony and Steve, but Bernice is not. The note Pepper wrote and attached to the picture … was for Tony Stark._

X

Chapter 15

Steve gunned the throttle of his Indian, the engine rumbling with power between his thighs. Passengers stuck in traffic heading the other direction, _into _the city this early in the morning, gave him envious stares as he wove through the light southbound traffic of the New Jersey Turnpike.

He'd woken up feeling restless, unable to put his finger on the uneasy feeling which had woken him from a dream. It had been a pleasant dream, one he'd had some variation of many times before, but this time it had been unusually real.

"_What'll you have, soldier?" the barman asked, rubbing dry a clean glass with a bar cloth._

"_I'll have a beer," Steve said. He plunked down a shilling, staring into the mirror behind the bar at the reflected dance floor. The bartender poured a draft, the beer forming an amber head like a sheath of fine wheat. Strains of the Andrews Sisters strummed out from the five-man band playing on the small raised platform that served as a stage while local British girls tore up the floor with Allied soldiers from all over the globe. _

"_You waiting for someone?" the bartender asked, making small talk._

"_Yeah," Steve said. His face lit up in a smile. "Someone real special. I wouldn't miss this date for anything in the world."_

_There was a lull in the room, even the band missing a beat as every head turned towards the entrance of the Stork Club. Peggy, paused in the doorway as though she were the young Princess Royale Elisabeth, waiting for her retainers to clear a path. She wore that red dress, the one that showed off her figure and gave her chestnut hair and dark eyes an air of mystery. Every man in the room rose to their feet, moving towards her to ask for a dance, much to the annoyance of casual dance partners who stormed away in a huff. The band recovered their beat, giving a brassy 'whah-whaa' of the trombone, and resumed playing._

_Peggy looked toward the bar, her expression confident. Steve felt like that skinny kid from Brooklyn who no girl would give the time of day as she made her way through the sea of adoring retainers. Steve had rehearsed what he'd say a million times, but every time he opened his mouth, the words always came out wrong. His heart beat so fast it sounded as though an airplane engine was roaring in his ears._

"_I promised I'd be here," Steve said, the only words he could get out of his mouth without choking. "I always keep my promises."_

"_I know." Peggy smiled, her lips curving up in a wolfish smile which flashed her perfect white teeth. Some part of Steve's mind noted her lipstick matched her dress, as though they'd been purchased together just for tonight. "I waited a long time for the right man to ask me to dance."_

_Steve opened his mouth to answer and didn't have any words to convey just how much this moment meant to him. He decided it was better if he didn't speak. What better way to avoid putting your foot into your mouth than to simply shut up and let the girl do all the talking? He took her proffered hand, fashionably clad in elbow-length red gloves, and led her to the dance floor._

"_I still don't know how to dance," Steve said. "I waited … I guess I was waiting for the right girl."_

_He had no idea what to do, but ever since Peggy had put the idea into his head, Steve had been watching what others did very closely, practicing with a broom whenever nobody was looking. He would never be Gene Kelly, but he had enough common sense to put one arm around the small of Peggy's back and use the other hand to hold her in a lead. The band changed songs, the somber strains of Bing Cosby singing 'I'll Be Seeing You' giving the smoky room an intimate feel. As though they were the only two people in the world right now and the music existed only for them._

"_For a soldier who says he's never danced," Peggy said, "you move pretty well. I thought for sure by now you'd have crushed my feet."_

"_I'll learn," Steve said, embarrassed to admit just how many times he'd gone back to the movie theatre to watch Gene Kelly dance with a cartoon mouse. Compared to the elaborate footwork of a tap dancer, leading Peggy in a slow dance was … manageable. He pulled her closer, his heart racing as she rested her cheek upon his chest. In his mind, Peggy had always been larger than life, but nestled into the circle of his arms, it was as though he held a little China doll. Fragile. As though any moment she would break._

_The song seemed to go on forever. They circled, other couples occasionally brushing against them, but nothing breaking the moment which stretched between them. Peggy looked up at him, her dark eyes glittering in the dim lighting of the dance hall. It was now, or never._

_Steve hesitated, then bent down to kiss her. A –proper- kiss this time. Not a hasty smooch before leaping onto the landing gear of Red Skull's warplane. The first kiss –he- had ever given a woman and not the other way around. His kiss was awkward at first, but she responded, her hands slipping up around his neck as she pulled him closer. Steve felt as though he were drowning in the kiss and she his only source of oxygen. The song ended, but neither of them cared, ignoring the cat calls of the other patrons as Steve gave the woman of his dreams the kiss he'd always dreamed of giving her._

"_I love you," Steve whispered into her ear. "I've always loved you."_

"_I know," Peggy said, her face tilted up towards his. There were tears in her eyes. "But it wasn't meant to be."_

"_I'll make it be," Steve said, raising her red-gloved hand to his lips. "I'll find a way. I promise I'll find a way."_

"_It's time to let me go," Peggy said. She stood on tiptoes and kissed him. "There are some battles even Captain America wasn't meant to win."_

_They swayed to the music, their hearts beating as one, but as they danced, the feel of her in his arms became insubstantial and faded, leaving him swaying to an internal song that did not include her._

He'd awoken still trying to hold onto her even though the feel of her had faded from his arms. It had taken several moments to realize it had only been a dream, but the feeling of uneasiness stayed with him. Last night's mission had left him short of sleep, but the emotion the dream had left him with was so strong he was unable to get back to sleep. He went downstairs to the gym to open up early, getting the facility ready for the day long before the manager he'd hired, or any customers, arrived to do their early morning workouts. Punching a bag didn't help. Nor did sparring with two of his best customers. Visiting hours weren't until 1:00, but he'd finally said the heck with it and grabbed his coat, certain he could con the nurses into pretending he wasn't there earlier than visitors were _supposed _to be there.

He blew past a cop sitting in a speed trap with a radar gun, not caring he was going faster than the 65 mph posted. He barely even slowed down for the tool booth, cutting across six lanes of traffic to the fast lane and rummaging in his coat pocket for a coin. He tossed it into the toll bucket, barely slowing down. A hearse passed in the opposite lane, headed _into _the city. The window went down. The driver solemnly placed a coin into the other side. Steve shivered. He gunned the throttle and raced along the river.

He burst into the nursing home, thankful the staff was too busy with morning duties to stop him as he stalked past the empty nursing station and burst into her room. He paused, neither occupant in attendance at the moment. The bed was empty, stripped of sheets. At the foot of her bed the black charge nurse he'd met many times, but never really spoken to, was carefully taking Peggy's pictures down from the wall and wrapping them in tissue paper before putting them into a box.

"Where is she?" Steve asked, panting for breath that had nothing to do with physical exertion. "Where's Peggy?"

The nurse's expression was sympathetic. She paused, glancing down at the picture which happened to be in her hands. Peggy's husband, standing in front of a milk truck holding a crate of glass milk bottles.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Rogers," the nurse said, her voice gentle. "Peggy passed away quietly in her sleep somewhere between three and four this morning."

Steve felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. His hand shook as he reached down to steady himself on the footboard of Mrs. Schnieder's bed, the roommate being thankfully absent.

"N-nobody called me," Steve whispered. Of course they wouldn't have called him. He was nobody to them. Peggy had gone on to create her _own _family. A family he wasn't part of.

"There wasn't time," the nurse said. "The undertaker just took her less than an hour ago. I'm very sorry."

Steve sat in the chair, staring at what few pictures remained. The picture Bernice had drawn of him was gone, as were most of the other pictures Peggy had plastered all over her wall. Peggy had gone on to live her life without him, a life she was proud of, leaving him to muddle his way through on his own.

"I promised her I'd come back to see her again," Steve said, his voice sounding strangled and high-pitched even to his own ears.

"I'm very sorry," the nurse repeated, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulders. "Would you like me to leave you alone with her things?"

"Yes," Steve whispered, his voice cracking.

He waited until the door shut behind her before he allowed himself to weep.

X

_Note: We all knew this was coming. Peggy was 94 years old and in poor health. Now we'll have to see how Steve manages without her. If you've got a moment, hit the big blue button at the bottom of the page and give me your thoughts. Thanks for reading!_


	16. Chapter 16

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including __**blown-transistor, garnet86, .fire, AoiKuroNekoSan, IlikeKnightsInBangedUpArmor, Kuramalover2006, rEdRoSeSiNaUgUsT, Bakunawa, Penny Tortoiseshell, MARVELous life –candygrrl, Arrows the Wolf, Felidaes' Tale, Katya Jade, **__and__** Mystewitch**_. _Wow! So many people giving feedback, encouragement, tips, and ideas about what they'd like to see happen next!_

_This chapter is a turning point. It's time to say goodbye to the past and start looking forward. Thanks for reading, everyone!_

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Chapter 16

Bernice stifled her tears and sang, not the usual Amazing Grace, which her cousin had sung moments before, but a wild, pagan ballad from the lowlands of Scotland. The song was traditionally accompanied by bagpipes, but since none within the Miller clan knew anything about the peculiar instruments, Bernice sang a capella, with only a single note from a harmonica to start. It seemed absurd for a Jewish-American girl to sing a Scottish funeral song for her American-born grandmother who'd been raised in an English town near the Scottish border. But it was what Peggy wanted sung at her funeral and only Bernice had ever memorized enough Gaelic to pull it off.

_Dh' iadh ceo nan stuc mu eudann Chuilinn,  
Us sheinn 'bhean-shith a torman mulaid,  
Gorm shuilean ciuin 'san Dun a sileadh,  
O'n thriall thu uainn 's nach till thu tuille._

The banshee wails, and all of us weeping. Fitting music for how Bernice felt at the passing of her co-conspirator and confidant. Her voice broke at the last chorus and she was unable to go on.

"It's okay," Papa said, kissing her hair. "You tried. Grandma Peggy would be proud of you."

Bernice sank into her father's arms. She'd been closest of all the grandchildren to the matriarch of their family, but her first-generation aunt and uncles were devastated at her passing. The minister said a final prayer before giving the order to lower her coffin into the ground next to the grandfather Bernice had never met. It was a fancy coffin, far fancier than the one her grandmother had picked out. The undertaker claimed there had been a mix-up at the factory, but Bernice had her suspicions. Pepper Potts, herself, had signed the card attached to the enormous bouquet of flowers sent by Stark Industries.

One by one, her aunts and uncles, cousins and other family members threw a rose into the hole in the ground where Peggy was being laid to rest. They began to disperse.

"Do you want to catch a ride with us?" Papa asked. "We don't mind driving into the city."

"No," Bernice said. "I'll be fine. I'd like to hang around and draw the scenery. This place is very peaceful."

"All right, bubbala," Papa said. "We shall leave you to your peculiar musings."

Although Papa had never approved of her choosing art as a career, at least he'd stopped _disapproving _after she'd landed the job at Stark Industries. Although now what she did wasn't so much fine art as it was, well, engineering design. Helping engineers take that string of numbers locked up inside their heads and turn it into something non-geniuses like herself could wrap their brains around visually.

Green-Wood Cemetery had been set up like a park, with rolling hills, ancient trees, and enormous monuments to the people laid to rest. It was said it was the ambition of every New Yorker to live upon Fifth Avenue, take his airings in Central Park, and sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood Cemetery. Bernice circled the grounds, finally choosing to settle into the roots of an enormous purple beech. It was peaceful here. Grandma had cheerfully told her that once she'd been laid to rest, it would be easier for Bernice to visit whenever she needed to talk. Bernice intended to _start _that conversation right now. She pulled out her pencils and began to sketch, her sadness pouring out into the page and finding comfort in the down-swept branches of a weeping cherry, the peaceful expression upon an angel's face, and the lofty spires of the mausoleum which sat upon a distant hill like a Cinderella castle. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the trunk.

She must have dozed off, because when she opened her eyes, she realized she was no longer alone. A figure kneeled beside the open grave, only flowers covering the coffin until the undertakers could get here with a bulldozer to fill the hole. He wore a uniform that _had _to be straight out of World War II, broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist and hips like some idealized propaganda poster of the perfect soldier. It took her a moment to realize it was Steve, wearing a vintage uniform. His grandfathers?

Steve had come to the wake wearing a suit, standing silently next to the fearsome-looking Mr. Fury with his black eye-patch, two bookends with unreadable expressions upon both of their faces. If Bernice hadn't known him, she might have mistaken his stone-faced expression as he'd woodenly walked through the line of family and paid his condolences as duty. The service at the gravesite had been for immediate family only, but she'd been surprised he hadn't come anyways. He'd been a frequent visitor at the nursing home, although Bernice had never figured out why. Grandma had been tight-lipped about her acquaintance with the man who'd taken down an alien invasion even as she'd encouraged Bernice to get to know him.

Bernice started to rise to her feet to speak with him but realized he wished to be alone. Much the way _she _wished to say goodbye by drawing the place her grandmother had been laid to rest. Settling back into the shadow of the beech tree, invisible against the sunny day, Bernice flipped to a fresh page and began to sketch.

She couldn't hear what Steve said as he bid her grandmother goodbye, distance and the wind carrying away his words, but by the shake of his body she realized he was crying. Her pencil captured the forlorn slope of his broad shoulders kneeled at the side of the grave, as though he were Atlas carrying the weight of the world. He took something out of his pocket, kissed it, and tossed it into the hole. She froze as he stood and looked uphill in her direction, but it was a dense shade cast by the ancient tree and he didn't see her sitting with her sketchbook. He stood at attention and saluted the grave, then walked away as though he were a soldier on a march.

Bernice waited until he was out of sight before walking down to see what Steve wished her grandmother to be buried with. If only he'd asked her family at the funeral home! They would have placed it into the coffin along with the other mementos children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had placed into the casket to send Peggy off into the next world.

Amongst the flowers sat a tiny box. Was it something which had belonged to Steve's grandfather? Oh. _That _was why grandmother had been so excited when she'd first thought her old friend was still alive! What a dummy! The friend her grandmother had always spoken of when she'd encouraged Bernice to draw, not just the grandfather whose talents she'd inherited.

Grabbing the enormous bouquet of flowers so generously given by the thoughtful Pepper Potts, Bernice tossed it into the grave, on top of the tiny box she was certain contained a ring. She then plunked her rear-end back down into the roots of the enormous beech tree and waited until the gravediggers came to push the enormous pile of dirt into her grandmother's grave. For some reason, Bernice was certain her grandmother wished whatever was in the box to be buried along with all the other secrets she'd carried into the next world.

X

_Note: MacCrimmon's Lament (The Song of the Banshee) can be listened to at lunatrick +dot+ bandcamp +dot+ com / track / maccrimmons-lament _

_Replace +dot+ with a period and delete the spaces before and after the backslash/. Song as performed by Rebsie Fairholm, one of my favorite folk artists and a genuine nice person. _


	17. Chapter 17

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including __**Dragon Reverb, Penny Tortoiseshell, garnet86, KimchixBurger, Mystewitch, tardiswing, Arrows the Wolf, Katya Jade, MARVELous life –candygrrl, **_**and**_** blown-transistor.**_

_Thanks to __**blown-transistor**_**, **_who pointed out the ending of the last chapter was unclear. I re-wrote the last paragraph to hopefully clarify Bernice did –not- crawl down into her grandmother's grave and steal the box, but stayed to make sure the grave-diggers did not steal it! She understood it was important for Steve let go of whatever was in the box._

_Thanks to __**Dragon Reverb, **__who pointed out a lack of clarity as to whether or not Steve and Peggy ever … well … you know. Here you have your answer. If you re-read Chapter 12, you'll see the man Peggy finally married not only physically and temperamentally resembled the pre-super-soldier serum Steve, but also had his abilities as an artist._

_Thanks, everybody for reading, reviewing, asking questions and pointing out plot holes! Reviews (and criticism) make my writing better!_

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Chapter 17

"Why Hawkeye?" Steve asked. "I thought you wanted _me _in charge?"

"We do," Nick Fury said, his usually grim expression softening into one of sympathy. "But ever since Peggy died, you've been off your game. I'd usually place Natasha in charge, but…"

Nick's voice trailed off. They _both _glanced over to where Natasha sat polishing her gun. The small scar between her eye socket and eyeball had faded to a tiny pink dot, but ever since she'd woken up from her coma, something had been a little bit 'off.' None of them could quite put their finger on it, especially in light of Hawkeye's insistence there was nothing wrong with her. But at least Fury was taking Steve's reservations seriously.

"It wouldn't be fair to bust down Natasha," Fury said softly enough that Natasha couldn't hear. "And not do the same with you."

Fury was right. He _had _been off his game lately, finding himself in neighborhoods he hadn't visited in years with no memory of walking there and spacing out during training, earning more than a few bruises from Hawkeye and Thor. Ever since Peggy had died, he hadn't been able to sleep, hoping fervently when he _did _drift off he'd be reunited with her in his dreams and, instead of finding Peggy, being plagued with nightmare after nightmare of a village they'd walked into in occupied France during the Great War after Herr Klaiser had decimated it. Shapeshifters. The local villagers had whispered tales of creatures that would suck the brains out of the skulls of the locals and then assume their shapes. If Peggy was sending him intel from the other side, as she'd often joked she would do to make light of the fact she'd been dying, it _wasn't _that she wished him to pine for her passing.

"Hawkeye's a good man," Steve finally answered. "It will give him experience taking charge instead of always following someone else's lead."

The flawed Avenger with a checkered past, same as Natasha. As much of a pain in the backside as Tony Stark was with his narcissistic personality and tendency to go overboard on just about everything he did, Stark's loyalties had never been called into question. Thor was … Thor. And Banner was never really all that in control of damage the Hulk did whenever his alter-ego took over. But Clint 'Hawkeye' Barton had led a life of crime before being rehabilitated with a little gentle persuasion from the Black Widow. Clint's sole reason for towing the straight and narrow was sitting across the room, polishing her gun.

If Natasha proved unreliable in the line of fire, would it throw Hawkeye off his game, as well? His total trust in Natasha had already almost gotten him killed. Steve just hoped their de facto commander wouldn't be lulled into a false sense of security a second time.

"Let's get this over with," Fury said. He turned to the larger group. "All right, everyone. Listen up! As you all know, our grey-skinned lizard friends have _not _all left the building as we had all hoped. Some of them have decided to hang around and see if they can't regroup. What their plans are, nobody knows. All we have are puzzle pieces. Some of them pretty _old _puzzle pieces…"

Fury eyeballed Steve with his one good eye. Steve didn't see the humor in the situation.

"…and some of them pretty new. Doctor Banner. Do you care to tell us what you know?"

Bruce Banner stepped forward and hit the button on a remote control. The _green _button, Steve noted to himself. Images of the native Melanesian islanders they'd been forced to kill during the botched mission in the South Pacific leaped onto various screens around the room.

"Anybody notice anything peculiar about our victims?" Banner asked.

"They're all dead?" Tony Stark volunteered.

Banner raised one eyebrow at Tony Stark, but didn't grace his poor humor with an answer. He looked to Thor, then Natasha, before settling his gaze upon Hawkeye. The team leader for whatever mission Nick Fury was warming them up to go on.

"I never realized African-Americans could have blonde hair," Hawkeye said. He shot an apologetic glance at Nick Fury.

"Not African," Banner corrected him. "At least not for 35,000 years. These people are descended from a different sub-species of humans. Between 4-6% of the average Melanasian Islander's DNA is Denisovan Hominid. A race even older than homo sapiens and Neanderthal man. They carry a rare genetic sequence that went extinct _except _for isolated pockets of northern Europeans and Japanese cut off by glaciers from the rest of mankind. And a few isolated South Pacific islands."

Banner looked straight at Steve.

"Part of that extinct genetic sequence contains the allele for blonde hair."

"I'm a blonde," Thor protested.

"No kidding," Tony Stark muttered under his breath.

Even _Steve _got _that_ joke. It was the first chuckle they'd elicited from him in weeks. The errant mirth disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, but not before leaving Thor looking from one teammate to the other, a perplexed expression upon his face.

"You find amusement at my expense?" Thor growled.

"No," Banner said. "Actually … that's why I called this meeting. Thor … how long have the Asgardians been visiting Earth?"

"Of that I'm not sure," Thor said. "It is said that the All Father's father's father, Búri, was licked out of a block of ice upon this world by the primordial cow, Auðumbla. But Búri died long before I was born. Even within the lifespan of those you humans call gods, that was a very long time ago."

"An ice age?" Tony Stark said, leaning forward in his seat and running his fingers through his goatee. He turned to Steve. "Perhaps this ancestor was revived from the ice like Steve was?"

"Doctor Erskine said the formula Red Skull ordered him to research was based upon Norse mythology," Steve said, leaning back in his seat and wracking his brains to remember what Erskine had told him about the origins of the super-soldier serum. He looked across the table at Thor. "Perhaps Erskine was on the trail of the _same _science that makes Asgardians, well, Asgardian?"

"I have undergone no treatment such as that described by Deputy Director Fury," Thor said. He looked at Steve and gave him an approving nod. "-I- would have been brave enough to undergo such a painful process such as that endured by Steve Rogers, but I can assure you many of my fellow Asgardians would _not _have tolerated such a treatment. Not, at least, without remembering it."

"Is the super-serum enhancement passed along to your children?" Hawkeye asked. Steve noted the way he looked at Natasha when he asked that question.

"The Infinity Formula," Nick Fury said, "the less complete version which is all we've been able to recreate from Doctor Erskine's research, wears off and needs to be replenished every few months. Only Steve's treatment has proven permanent."

"Any little Steve's running around we should know about?" Tony Stark asked, waggling his eyebrows.

"No." Steve glowered at the former playboy, whose baser impulses were only being held in check by the fact Miss Potts would dump his sorry mechanically-clad rear end in a heartbeat if Tony so much as _glanced _at another woman. Stark's bad behavior these days was relegated to snarky comments and failed attempts to drink Thor under the table.

"Because back in 1945 they didn't have paternity testing like they do now," Tony continued, ignoring the warning glance from Nick Fury. "I mean … if you went riding the pony bareback, you never know _what's _out there waiting to pop up and shout 'you owe me back child support."

"I said no!" Steve snapped.

"Is that why you've taken such an interest in my father's old personal assistant and her comely granddaughter," Stark kept right on taunting him, ignoring the warning glance from Nick Fury. "She disappeared shortly after your plane went down. Hmmm… it's awfully odd, the way you just integrated yourself into Peggy's family the minute you got back to the future."

"Enough!" Steve stood and pounded his fists upon the table, veins popping out of his neck as he tried to calm himself. Peggy wasn't here to defend her honor, but even _had_ they taken their relationship to that level of intimacy before he'd been shot down, they'd have been in church the next morning tying the knot. Or as was the custom in 1945, pounded on the door to the nearest church and begged the minister to hitch them on the spot _before _they ran home to consummate their relationship, which is why he'd bought the ring the moment he'd realized his feelings for her weren't totally one-sided. Steve lowered his voice to an angry hiss.

"Unlike _some _low-life among us, some of us believe in waiting for the right woman _before_ we, what is it you call it? Ride the pony."

Steve felt two pairs of hands reach out on either side to restrain him before he leaped over the table and snapped Tony Stark's neck. Nick Fury. And Thor. One of whom knew just how much Peggy had meant to him, the other who shared _similar _views of not forcing one's baser impulses upon a woman unless you intended to _marry _them.

Tony Stark's dark eyes twinkled with the challenge he had just issued. Pushing the envelope of what he could get away with. As always. Steve could see the information click in the cocky peacock's mind, his mouth going into a surprised 'o'. Next to him, Hawkeye did the same thing, while Natasha held a neutral expression. Stark looked at Hawkeye and gave him a wink.

"Well I'll be," Tony Stark said, dancing that razor's edge. "What we have here is a 90-year-old virgin."

Steve flushed, not sure if it was anger or embarrassment. Even back in 1945, that was the kind of admission you made proudly to your priest and your mother, while amongst your male friends you feigned experience. He'd been so appalled at the … things … openly displayed on modern television that he'd stopped watching it.

"Enough, Stark!" Nick Fury barked. "And that's an order! The last thing we need is you two at each other's throats again!"

"Guys!" Bruce Banner interrupted. "And … uh … lady. What I was getting at was that we don't _know _whether or not the changes wrought by the super-soldier serum will be passed along to the next generation. It appears that Steve's cells were changed on a molecular level, right down to his DNA, while the serum given to Clint, Natasha and Director Fury only enhances cells existing in the body at the time of treatment. In other words, the moment those cells die off and are replaced through natural mitosis, they're back to square one."

"And then there's the matter of who _can _successfully take the serum," Hawkeye interjected. "It only works in a very small percentage of those who take it."

Steve thought back to what had happened to Red Skull. Johann Schmidt had always blamed Erskine for the undesirable side effects of the serum, which had wrought the desired physiological enhancements, but at the expense of increasing his level of psychopathology and wreaking grotesque changes in his appearance. Erskine had been adamant that not only must his next test subject possess certain physical characteristics, traits he had taken with him to the grave, but also the correct psychological temperament as well.

"Doctor Erskine said the serum makes you _more _of what you already are," Steve finally said. "But he refused to disclose more."

"And we _still _don't know why," Banner said. He pointed to the images of the poor dead Melanesians who'd been hijacked by the Chitauri. "But the Nazi's were obsessed with restructuring German society to breed a perfect soldier, not just create them through training. And they performed horrific experiments upon people they _didn't _want to be a part of their society. Experiments which, to this day, do not make sense. And now all of a sudden the Chitauri are going after tow-headed aboriginals? Part of the equation _has_ to do with genetics."

Thor tapped upon his chin, his expression thoughtful.

"By your leave, Director Fury," Thor said. "As soon as this next mission is completed, I would like to return to Asgard and research our people's visits here. I have never nurtured an affinity for the study of ancient history, but the All Father _has."_

"Thank you, Thor," Fury said. He crossed his arms in front of his chest in a gesture Steve had come to recognize as Fury would put up with no further antics. "And now we have a mission to brief for…"

X

_Note: the Nazi's were obsessed with breeding a perfect German soldier. Heinrich Himmler set up a breeding program to increase the Aryan birthrate called the Lebensborn, a support system of financial assistance, maternity hospitals, and adoption for the wives of SS soldiers, unmarried young women, and the placement of 'genetically pure' orphans. Unmarried mothers of tall stature, good physical health, blonde hair and blue eyes who'd become pregnant by German soldiers with those same genetic characteristics were accepted into the program and made up approximately 60% of births. Blonde hair and blue eyes are both recessive genes, so the only way a child can inherit them is if –both- parents have so-called 'pure blood.' The Nazi's were obsessed with genetic purity._

_There were 31-37 of these homes operated throughout occupied Europe, 9-15 of them in Norway as that was the country with the highest number of women with the desired 'Aryan' traits. As many as 20,000 'genetically pure' children were born. This was in addition to an additional 10,000 tow-headed Polish (and other) children kidnapped from occupied countries and brought to Germany to be 'germanized' in a separate program started by Himmler, a program with the same essential aim … to create a perfect Aryan race which could take over the Earth. _

_Although the Lebensborn was not coercive in nature … the young women who took part in the program did so voluntarily because they were better cared for than the surrounding population, who were often starving as a result of German occupation, many of the young women who entered the Lebensborn in Norway were –not- initially pregnant. They became so after being paired with specific German soldiers for the sole purpose of begetting genetically perfect Aryan offspring. Any child born who did not manifest those 'pure' features was expelled. _

_These facts are –real-. Not just some story cooked up for a superhero fanfiction!_

_Thanks for reading and be sure to hit that big blue button on your way out the door!_


	18. Chapter 18

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including __**Bakunawa,**_ _**The M.H.T. of R, tardiswing, tvdtwilight101, blown-transistor, **__and__** Arrows the Wolf**__. Special thanks to MHTofR who points out my bad grammar, plot holes, and clunky sentence structure … a thankless but necessary task._

_Before I launch into the next action scene, I wanted to let the readers know how Bernice is fitting in at her new job. _

X

Chapter 18

"No, no, no, no!" Doctor Nyi said. "More … rounder … like this." He grabbed a mangled chunk of metal he'd pulled off the strange-looking hovercraft called a 'glider' and held it in front of him, as though it were an airplane. "See. Whoosh. It has to be smooth so the air flows over it."

"Got it," Bernice said. She digitally erased the rear of the transport vehicle which looked like a cross between a chariot from Ben Hur and a jet ski and drew a gently curved line between two twisted objects they prognosticated were running boards. The image was drawn on a smart pad with graph paper overlaid over a line image created by a three-dimensional scan which had taken intricate measurements of the vehicle. The computers could accurately recreate what existed, but many areas were so badly damaged they were using conjecture to figure out what it had looked like _before _the Avengers had smashed it all to hell.

"Aha!" Dr. Nyi stared at what she had drawn so far, his eyes sparkling as though he were a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. "Yes. Very good. Very good. Bring that to Production and see if they can't fabricate a replacement."

"Right away," Bernice said.

She noted where the known measurements ended and her concept drawing began, then made her way out through multiple layers of security to the Production Department, where a second team of engineers converted blueprints into real objects. Mathematics had never been her forte, but she found herself wishing she'd packed a few more classes under her belt so she could translate the quadratic equations the engineers spewed when describing how they _wished _a concept drawing to look instead of simply saying, 'it's curved.'

"Could you please bring this down on your way back, Bernice?" the Production technician said, handing her an object not much bigger than a golf ball. She signed for the object and carried it into the bowels of Stark Industries where they joked Pepper Potts only let the engineers come up to see the sun once per week.

Doctor Nyi clucked like a broody hen sitting on an egg as he fit the object into the damaged transport vehicle. Bernice went over to where a different piece of alien technology had just been brought in. Before they took it apart, it had to be photographed, scanned, measured, and then drawn every step of the way to ensure no design element was missed. Retro-engineering, the science of taking something apart, figuring out how it worked, and creating a new model for yourself. Usually photographs and scans sufficed, but the Chitauri technology had been heavily damaged or rigged to self-destruct.

"Aha!" Doctor Nyi clucked, moving about the glider like a short, plump hen who had just found a nice, fat grub to eat. "Bernice! You're a genius!"

She was no such thing. All she had done was point out the shattered fragments surrounding the delicate electronics appeared to indent _in, _not _out _as the engineers assumed it should. A low hum went through the lab, causing a sensation akin to standing next to a high tension power line. Yes. _This _version of the golf-ball-thingy worked. The damaged glider hovered two feet off the ground, wobbling as the mangled rear-end threw off its balance. Other engineers drifted over from other parts of the lab, oohing and ahhing.

"I think something is missing," Bernice said, pointing to the imbalance. "Something besides the exhaust portal between the running boards."

The engineers began to argue, devolving into calling each other 'idiot.' She'd been witness to many heated arguments since she'd started here. What amazed her was not that they argued. With this level of alien technology, one educated guess was as valid as another. What amazed her was that, at the end of the argument, they all slapped each other on the back and went back to being the best of friends.

"I think you're right," Dr. Nyi said, examining the mangled rear of the glider. The engineers tried to puzzle out what was missing. "Bernice … why don't you pour through images of gliders in action and see if you can't locate what _should _be here."

"On it," Bernice said. Dr. Nyi made an elated phone call upstairs to inform them the glider had finally powered up.

Bernice's talents were most useful when she listened to the engineers brainstorm and then compared those thoughts to images downloaded from satellites, security cameras, cell phone snapshots, and news channels. It was not the blurry images of the technology itself which led Bernice to the leaps of insight which made her a valuable member of the team, but the way the aliens had moved as they reached for a gun or banked a glider towards an opponent. The engineers had been trained to design weapons for _people, _but Bernice had spent her entire life studying the way the human form moved and daydreaming about magical weapons wielded by mythological creatures.

Bernice queued up her laptop and started scrolling through the images keyworded as 'glider.' As advanced as the Stark Industries super-computers were at crunching data, no computer could make the leaps of assumption the human mind was capable of and fill in information that did not exist.

Bernice's finger paused. Frozen for all eternity was a shot some civilian had taken of a lizard-man swooping in on a glider to shoot a New York City policeman. She wondered if the policeman's family would ever see the image of the brave policeman, gun drawn, facing down an alien invasion? She stared at the invaders posture and imagined what it would have been like to be that alien at that moment, swooping in for the kill, balanced on a machine that gave no protection to the soldier using it. She imagined how her body, no longer human, but possessing the increased height and elongated limbs of a Chitauri, six-fingered hands and enormous flat feet would move on the glider now floating in their laboratory.

"It's a kick-plate," Bernice called to Dr. Nyi. "Kind of like the back of a skateboard. To rest their heel and give them better balance."

"That would increase the drag coefficient," one of the engineers said.

"But the curved edge of the front of the craft would reduce that factor," a second engineer contradicted.

"It's a gigantic jet ski some alien surfer-dude rides upon like a wave," a third engineer said. "Aerodynamics is only of peripheral concern to stability."

"Even a jet ski is aerodynamic, nimwit," the first engineer said. "It just moves through the water. Not the air."

"When was the last time you saw a jet ski with a kick plate?" the third engineer retorted.

"Well that's what I think it is," Bernice interrupted, ignoring their bickering. She pulled out her smart pad and made a few adjustments. She then added what she saw in the snapshot … an alien leg going down, heel slightly raised. "See? It slopes upward."

Dr. Nyi examined the mangled back of the glider. "Get me that ruler!"

Within ten minutes a bunch of rulers had been carefully balanced along the two running boards near the back of the glider. The wobble evened out.

"I think she's onto something," the first engineer said.

For the next forty-five minutes, the team removed mangled metal and replaced it with a variety of weighted objects until they were satisfied they had the correct weight for the 'kick plate.' As they worked, Bernice continued flipping through the images, looking for confirmation of what she suspected. She came to an image that was familiar.

"Steve," she whispered. She enlarged the image to fill her entire screen. He was poised, arm cocked back to throw his shield at an incoming glider. What struck her most wasn't how very heroic he looked. The internet was _filled_ with images of the mystery man in the red-white-and-blue suit, all neatly censored, of course, so that none of them showed his face. _This _picture was uncensored. His helmet was off. His suit was torn. He was bleeding. And he stood alone. Steve looked … scared.

How much _did _she know about the mystery man who'd suddenly begun visiting her grandmother after she'd rattled a few cages and then disappeared as soon as her grandmother had died? She'd asked Doctor Nyi, but he'd said the information was so highly classified that even _he _didn't have security clearance to view it.

She downloaded the image to her laptop. With her grandmother gone, she had no way to contact him. She'd hoped he'd contact _her_ on his own, or she'd run across him here at Stark Industries, but he'd vanished just as mysteriously as he'd appeared. Why _would _he contact her? She was nobody to him. She hadn't even known how to get in touch with him to tell him her grandmother had died, although somehow he'd found out because he'd appeared at the funeral. She'd been so wrapped up in her own grief that it hadn't occurred to her it would be her last chance to find out where he lived. She was so used to Googling telephone numbers that she'd been shocked none of the 'Steve Rogers' listed in the New York City phone book were him.

A commotion came from the entrance to the lab, an entourage coming through the security checkpoint. Bernice looked up and was surprised to see a dark-haired man strut in like a maestro conducting an orchestra. He redirected every engineer in the room to do different tasks, laughing as Dr. Nyi ran up with a smart board and briefed him on the progress they'd made on the glider. The man glanced in her direction, stopped mid-sentence, and headed her way as though she were the quarry in a hunt. Dark hair. Goatee. Black eyes filled with more mischief than Puck himself in a Midsummer Night's Dream.

Oh … shit.

"M-M-Mr. Stark!" Bernice stammered as she recognized her boss.

"If it isn't the granddaughter of Peggy Carter," Tony Stark said, holding out one hand to guide her down from the stool where she sat awkwardly perched, her laptop precariously balanced upon her lap. He gave her an appraising stare, then glanced at the picture she'd foolishly left plastered on her screen. "And a friend of Steve Rogers."

Bernice almost choked.

"S-s-sorry … Sir," Bernice said, hastily clicking the minimize button on her screen. That was a mistake. Instead of the usual Stark Industries corporate logo, she'd uploaded her _own _digital artwork with an idealized depiction of the Avengers posed to defend New York, Steve prominently displayed as the central character. She noted Mr. Stark's raised eyebrow and slammed shut her laptop.

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Mr. Stark said. He guided her over to stand in front of the alien glider. "Dr. Nyi said _you _were the one who solved the stability problem?"

"N-n-no-yes!" Bernice stammered. Breathe. Just breathe. All she had to do was breathe … and stop stammering like some pathetic fangirl over-awed by the presence of her superhero-slash-boss. Besides … _he _wasn't the mystery man she spent far too much of her spare time daydreaming about…

NO! She shoved the unwanted thought out of her mind. It didn't matter. Tony Stark had moved on to question one of the assistant engineers and grabbed a screwdriver, pulling apart the delicate patch-job Dr. Nyi had just done to get the golf-ball thingy to fit.

"This is good," Mr. Stark said, totally focused on his task and ignoring the fact there were other people in the room. "JARVIS? What are you reading on this?"

A mechanical voice with a British accent came out of the PA system.

"I'm reading excess electrostatic discharge," JARVIS said. "I estimate the patch is 30% less efficient than whatever part was in there originally. Based on the concept design produced by Miss Rosenthal, I believe the micro-conductors inside need to be increased three-one-thousandths of a millimeter."

"Do it," Tony Stark said. "Have Production synthesize an updated version stat. I want this thing operational before we fly out of here tonight."

"What about the tail, Sir?" Dr. Nyi asked, pointing to the jury-rigged stack of rulers. "We haven't submitted this improvement to Production yet."

Tony Stark walked back to Bernice's workbench, grabbed her smart pad, and began flipping through the images she had super-imposed over the engineers design specifications.

"This is wrong … wrong … wrong," Mr. Stark said, punching in a bunch of numbers. "How are you getting such accurate scale drawings with such sloppy math?"

"I'm sorry … Sir," Bernice said. "I'm … this was just a concept design."

Mr. Stark punched in a few more numbers and uploaded the image to the main Stark Industries server. He handed back the smart pad to her with a mischievous smile.

"JARVIS," Mr. Stark called. "Tell them to get me the tail piece and kick plate as well. Can't very well send my teammates crashing into the South Pacific now, can we?"

"As you wish, Mr. Stark," JARVIS said.

"But Sir," Dr. Nyi protested. "We haven't flight tested this thing yet. We have no idea how it's going to react with a human pilot."

"No better way to find out than testing it in the field," Mr. Stark said, strutting back to the glider and pulling up a stool. "JARVIS … where's my power supply?"

"I'm in the process of re-tooling the Production Department robotics to produce the requested parts right now," JARVIS said. "It should take … two hours."

Bernice stood there, her mouth opening and shutting as though she were a fish out of water. Two hours? Usually it took days! She'd heard the engineers joke about what happened whenever Tony Stark came breezing through their labs and turned everything on its head, but she hadn't believed it. He had just done in minutes what it had taken an entire team of engineers weeks to retro-engineer.

"Miss Rosenthal," Mr. Stark called, not even looking up from the work he was now engrossed in. "Grab your smart pad and pull up a stool. I need someone to jot down ideas while I work without telling me it can't be done."

"Yes, Sir," Bernice said.

For the next several hours, Tony Stark rebuilt the alien glider and rattled off ideas, some of which had absolutely nothing to do with the glider. . Weapons. Defensive shields. Alien worlds and Nazi soldiers, which for some reason Mr. Stark was fixated upon. And a quick sketch of a cake he wished to design for Miss Potts upcoming birthday. He rattled off ideas so fast that many of the concept sketches were little more than stick figures with a few details added to memorialize his wild ideas. Slipping the retro-engineered tailpiece of the glider into place as soon as a technician from Production came running down, out of breath, Mr. Stark wiped grease on his horrifically expensive designer slacks and turned to Bernice with a devilish grin.

"Steve may be a prudish pain in my ass," Mr. Stark said, waggling his eyebrows at her. "But he's a pain in the ass with an eye for talent. JARVIS! Please upload everything on Miss Rosenthal's smart pad to my personal server."

"Yes, Mr. Stark," JARVIS said.

"I want that glider delivered to the Triskelion by eighteen hundred hours!" Mr. Stark ordered the engineers. "It's getting field tested tonight."

Before Bernice could say goodbye, the man who was the talent behind Stark Industries strutted out of the laboratory like the owner of the place he really was. The moment the door closed behind him, the engineers all burst out laughing and slapped her upon the back.

"You're not a member of the team," Dr. Nyi laughed. "Until Tony Stark has turned your pet project on its head."

Leaving the glider in the hands of some lower-level technicians charged with boxing it up and delivering it to whatever address Mr. Stark had rattled off, Dr. Nyi and the engineers and dragged Bernice to the cafeteria to have a rousing lunch.

X

_Note: confession time … __I'm a Pepperony. For those of you who keep complaining my Captain America fanfic keeps highlighting the tension from Steve's point-of-view of Tony's less admirable qualities, I thought I'd give you a little Iron Man candy of Tony doing that genius-met-tech thing that gives us geek girls a woodie. Yeah … I can fly!_

_Thanks for reading! If you've got a moment, hit that big blue button at the bottom of the page and tell me your thoughts!_


	19. Chapter 19

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**AoiKuroNekoSa, Anonymous, Arrows the Wolf, garnet86, nahrebbs, Mystewitch, The M.H.T. of R, **__and __**blown-transistor. **_

_And now, the mystery deepens…_

X

Chapter 19

"Fan out," Hawkeye ordered. As C.O. for this mission, it was his job to give the order.

Steve split off and slipped through the vegetation skirting the edge of the enormous black heart of the island. Most of these islands were volcanic in origin. Although Ambryn had around 2,400 residents, most lived on the North and Southwest coasts, avoiding the Eastern side where acid rain from the three active cones damaged anything the locals tried to grow. The dead heart was a surreal, alien landscape, with long black canyons of volcanic ash and open calderas with red flowing lava. With so few natives on the east coast and deep water coves, the island had been a haven for pirates and criminals since the time of Captain Cook.

"What are we looking for, exactly?" Banner called over the radio. "Besides blonde-haired aboriginals?"

"We've had missing person reports," Nick Fury said from where he was monitoring the situation offsite. "All locals. Several days ago one came back, disoriented, with the same hole drilled into their frontal lobe that Natasha had. If we hadn't asked about suspicious activity involving blonde-haired Melanesians, it probably would have slipped our notice."

"How many?" Steve asked.

"Latest report says 22 people missing," Fury called. "Thirteen males, nine females. All from different villages. All had blonde hair. Six of them are children."

"I didn't sign on to shoot children," Tony Stark said.

"Nor I," Thor called. "Only cowardly dogs conscript children."

"You may not have a choice," Hawkeye said.

"How are we supposed to get across without being seen?" Steve asked, surveying the 33 mile wide lunar ash field. "Once we get close to the cones, there are canyons we can use for cover, but its seven miles of ash field between here and there."

"I have every confidence our esteemed team mates shall navigate the terrain with ease," Thor said. "The rest of thou fearsome warriors, I fear, are by far too conspicuous. Thou shall have to alter thee appearance."

"My suit is red and flies," Tony Stark said. "If that's not conspicuous, I don't know what is."

Steve reached into his knapsack and pulled out a pair of black coveralls. When Senator Brandt had asked him to sell War Bonds, the red-white-and-blue uniform had been designed to spark the patriotism of the public. When he'd taken command of the 101st Airborne and been given body armor, he'd asked Howard Stark to _keep _the color scheme as a symbol to raise morale. In occupied Europe, the weather had been cold. It was easy enough to throw a regular uniform over his armor when stealth was needed. Here in the South Pacific, however, it was over 90 degrees. From what action he'd seen in this part of the world during his forays against the Empire of Japan, it was going to be a miserable, hot trek across the volcanic landscape.

"As long as I don't go all green on you guys," Banner said. "I should be able to creep through inconspicuously."

The Chitauri had disappeared after blowing the helicarrier out of the sky. The likelihood of exposing an actual base was relatively small. But they needed to be ready to take action _should _they find alien soldiers. With Chitauri being larger, stronger, and better equipped than an average human, sending in anything _other_ than a super-soldier would be condemning men to die.

The setting sun sat like an eerie red fireball upon the desolate purgatory, giving the illusion of a fourth caldera. Wiping sweat from his brow, Steve made his way towards Mount Marum, the closest of the three ash cones. He covered his mouth and nose with a bandana, breathing shallowly so the tiny, razor-sharp shards of volcanic ash kicked up by his passage didn't get into his lungs. Heat radiating out of the magma flowing not far beneath the deadly black ash. Less than seven miles away, sparks flew out of the caldera like dragons breath, visible against the darkening sky. Off to the east, Steve could see a second figure, Natasha, make her way towards the suspect area. She moved like … he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Nastasha moved like a panther, but that uneasy feeling gnawed at his gut.

"Captain … what's your twenty?" Hawkeye called.

"Coming into the first canyon," Steve called.

"Romanov?"

"Creeping along the east ridge."

"Banner?"

"The rubber is melting off my boots!" Banner complained.

"That's good," Hawkeye said. "That means you're getting close."

Stark and Thor were prepped to fly in the moment one of them gave the word, while Hawkeye had the alien glider. Stark had made a point of bragging it had been Peggy's granddaughter who'd solved the problem of getting the thing to fly straight. Steve had been under the impression Bernice was an artist, not an engineer, but he was glad her talents had found a home. They had hundreds of _pieces _of alien gliders, but this was the first one they'd gotten operational.

The errant thought that he'd snap Stark's neck if he made a move on the attractive young woman danced into Steve's mind and was pushed aside. He'd been afraid to speak to _any _of Peggy's family at the memorial service lest he break down. _Especially _in front ofBernice, who'd inherited Peggy's eyes and smile. How would he explain it wasn't really _her _he was attracted to, but her resemblance to a younger version of a grandmother who was now in the grave? _That _was the reason, he rationalized, that he now found himself thinking about the young woman at odd times. Like now. Or late at night as he was dropping off to sleep.

Movement jarred him from his thoughts. He froze, blending into the walls of the canyon, glad he'd donned the sweltering hot coverall over his colorful armor. A woman walked towards him carrying a box that appeared far too heavy for her to lift. Aboriginal. Blonde hair. There was a stiffness about the way she moved, a delay he'd noticed battling Herr Klaiser's lower-ranking soldiers back in 1945. He wasn't especially well hidden in the lengthening shadows, but because he did not move, her eyes were not drawn to him plastered against the wall. A peculiar unwillingness to deviate from a routine unless the threat was egregious. He waited for the woman to move past him before calling it in.

"Command, this is the Cap," Steve whispered into his communications device. "I think we're at the right place."

"Is it time to crash the party yet?" Tony Stark called.

"No," Steve said. "One suspect. Female. Headed your way."

"We'll intercept her when she gets far enough away to not alert the others," Hawkeye called. "Thor. I'll leave it up to _you _to charm the lady."

"I shall waylay the maiden with the greatest courtesy," Thor said. "And ensure she does not raise the alarm."

"Banner?" Hawkeye called.

"Nothing," Banner said.

"Natasha?" Hawkeye called.

No answer.

"Natasha?" Hawkeye called again.

No answer.

Steve froze, holding his breath. That uneasy feeling returned.

"Natasha?" Hawkeye called, his voice losing that impersonal tone he usually had during a mission.

"No sign of activity," Natasha answered this time.

Steve exhaled with relief.

"I'm going to move further down the canyon and take a better look."

"Banner," Hawkeye called. "I want you to keep approaching from the other side. Natasha … intercept his position. Back each other up on this."

Steve squelched his protest. How do you explain you _used _to trust somebody, but now you don't due to something that wasn't their fault? He continued moving west, the canyon growing deeper the closer he got to the volcano and the temperature rising. How the heck could _anyone _stand temperatures this hot?

A movement from the top of the canyon wall caught his attention. Natasha gave him a hand signal indicating she would rappel down the canyon wall close to where a now dormant lava tube sank into the side of Mount Marum. Steve stared into the murky gloom, unable to see in the darkening light any further than the first few inches. The scent of sulfur wafted out, but there was no sign of movement. He gave Natasha the thumbs up. She threw down a rope and gracefully slid down, a spider sliding down her web.

"What are we looking at?" Natasha asked. She had that look about her she always had whenever she was on the hunt. An alertness that put him at ease.

"Just the one suspect," Steve said, his voice low. "Nothing since. No signs of life."

"Let's do this," Natasha said. She pulled her sidearm, her tool belt bristling with all manner of pointy, deadly baubles, and moved towards the entrance of the cave.

"Command … we're moving in for a closer look," Steve called.

"Roger," Hawkeye called. "Thor has intercepted the suspect. She surrendered without incident."

"Good," Steve called. "We're entering the mouth of the cave. Radio transmissions may be touch and go."

He followed Natasha, her footsteps lighter than his although he'd learned to walk lightly despite his bulk. The stench of sulfur grew stronger. A low gurgling akin to water running could be heard, although Steve knew no water would stay in this landscape for long.

"Shhh…" Natasha whispered, melting into a wall. Steve did the same thing. The tiny earpiece inserted into his ear generated nothing but static. They were too far inside the cave for radio signals to reliably get outside. If anything happened, they were cut off.

"What do you see?" Steve moved directly behind her, his eyes straining into the eerie glow of magma moving close enough to the surface to make part of the floor glow red hot.

"Not see," Natasha said. "Hear. Listen. Can't you hear it?"

Steve's hearing was better than all but the most sensitive human hearing, but he couldn't detect the sound Natasha referred to. Every aspect of her physiology, however, screamed alertness. This was the Black Widow he had grown to trust. The one with hair trigger reflexes. Gun aimed in front of her, she stalked further into the cave. They turned the corner and froze.

"Crap!" Steve hissed.

Three pairs of eyes, only one of them human, turned and stared at them. The creatures paused, as if unable to decide what to do. Natasha took advantage of the delay to plant two bullets in one of the aliens' six-chambered hearts.

"Hey!" Steve said, disturbed by how quick Natasha had pulled the trigger. "We're not executioners."

"You want to end up like _him?" _Natasha hissed, pointing towards the human who moved towards them stiffly, as if one of those zombie creatures Steve had watched in a late-night horror movie. Yes. _This _was the way he remembered it had been in occupied Europe.

"Capture if you can," Steve ordered. "Only kill when necessary."

"You're not in charge," Natasha hissed. "Clint is." She leaped at the second alien, delivering a roundhouse kick to its rib cage.

Steve pushed past her, unwilling to kill another human who he suspected was being controlled through brainwashing or mind control drugs. The Melanesian male swung at him as though he were a prize fighter moving in slow motion. Steve danced out of the way like a welterweight fighter and gave the suspect a right jab, then a double reverse punch. The suspect moved towards him, throwing his weight into his punch. Steve stepped to one side, grabbing the man's arm. The momentum of the man's own body weight worked against him as Steve sent the man tumbling onto the ground. He stomped on the man's hand as he tried to get up, then kicked him in the ribcage twice until the man stopped trying. Pinning him beneath one boot, he turned to see Natasha pull a piano wire out of her assassins belt and leap onto the Chitauri aliens back.

Static broke through the radio. Tony Stark was now in the cave, coming at them to provide backup. His words were garbled.

The Chitauri reached behind it, trying to prevent the wire from closing around its throat. Muscular grey limbs flailed, backing up into the wall as Natasha tightened the noose. Steve gave the downed human one last kick to make sure he _stayed _down moved towards her to help.

"Captain, this is Iron Man," Tony Stark called. "I'm at a fork. Which way?"

"This way," Steve called. He knew he didn't need to describe which way 'this way' was. JARVIS would triangulate the signal.

The Chitauri hissed and threw its weight backwards into the wall of the cave, trying to get Natasha off its back before she could and decapitate it.

"Natasha!" Steve called. "That's enough!"

Natasha tightened the noose, oblivious to her own pain as the creature slammed her into the wall a second time.

"Natasha!" Steve shouted. "Enough!" The grey-skinned lizard was hideous, but it's actions so far had been defensive in nature.

One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three … the seconds ticked. Natasha looked up, her expression blank. A chill went down Steve's spine. She blinked, as though seeing him for the first time. A murderous expression came into her eyes.

"These sons-of-bitches tried to kill me," Natasha hissed. She pulled the noose tighter.

Blue-tinted blood trailed down the creatures neck and the hands it was using to frantically pull the piano wire away from its own neck. The creature looked at Steve, the first time he had seen one out of their battle armor. It made a pitiful sound akin to a sheep having its throat cut for slaughter. Natasha had made up her mind she was going to kill it and nothing would dissuade her from her blood lust.

"We're not murderers!" Steve shouted. "This is in violation of the Geneva Convention."

"Fuck the Geneva Convention," Natasha shouted. The creature slammed her into the wall one more time.

Steve leaped towards them, not to help Natasha, but to stop her. Alien or no alien, what she was doing was wrong!

"I'm here," Tony Stark called. He saw the struggle and misunderstood what was really happening. The blast of his rockets echoed in the cave as he flew into both the Chitauri and Natasha, knocking _both _of them off balance, and got between Natasha and her prey.

Natasha let out a shriek of rage, rolling toward her feet and pulling a knife out of her belt to finish off the alien. The creature lay upon the floor, six-fingered hands clutching its severed jugular vein.

"Natasha!"

Steve plowed into her, knocking her off balance, before she could finish the job. She turned on him, blood lust in her eyes as she sliced at _him_ this time, not the alien. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve noted Stark had the Chitauri pinned to the ground, not that the dying creature _needed _pinning.

"Why doth thou fight one another?" Thor's voice boomed through the cave. Arriving to assist.

Natasha hissed at the both of them, then threw her knife upon the ground, disarming herself. She moved towards the alien she had shot first, already dead, and kicked it.

"These bastards tried to steal my mind!" Natasha shrieked. Her chest rose and fell, panting, as she tried to regain control of her anger.

"This guy … thing … is bleeding out," Tony called. "Steve. What do I do?"

"Kill it!" Natasha said, her voice regaining that calm, cold demeanor they _usually _associated with the Black Widow.

"Save it," Steve said. "This one didn't drop dead like all the others did. Perhaps we can interrogate it."

He rushed over to Stark's side, reaching into his rucksack and grabbing his first aid kit. One thing he'd gotten lots of experience with in the Second World War was in-the-trenches first aid. They didn't have medevac units or trauma surgeons back then. Either you stitched your buddy up on the spot. Or he died. The creature clawed at its throat, its maw opening and shutting as it gasped for air. The thing had fangs, but it was too busy gasping for air to bite them.

"Apply pressure … here," Steve said. Blue liquid was spurting out of one corner of its neck where the wire had cut through the jugular. The rest of the bleeding was serious, but non-fatal. The artery was close enough to the surface that Steve could see it.

"Thor," Tony Stark shouted. "Get Banner. He can fix this."

Thor ran out of the cave, leaving Natasha to guard the fallen Melanese islander who'd been working _with _the Chitauri. Steve divided his attention between trying to staunch the bleeding and making sure Natasha didn't try to kill the _human _suspect, either, if he was foolish enough to attempt getting up.

The alien made eye contact, the look of terror in its eyes as it realized it was dying universal no matter _what _the species. This was not a slow, mechanical creature like he'd battled over New York. This creature was afraid.

Thor came back with Banner, the sound of Hawkeye flying in behind them in the glider Tony Stark had jury-rigged to work once more echoing in the cave. Banner kneeled next to the alien and reached into his medical kit, which was more extensive than the medic supply kit carried by Steve.

"You got this?" Hawkeye asked Banner.

"Think so," Banner said.

"Stark … stand guard," Hawkeye ordered. "The rest of you, we need to see what these guys were guarding. Natasha … you're with me."

Natasha fell into line behind him, the murderous expression in her eyes diminishing the further they went into the cave. Had Steve been in charge, he would have chewed her out, but it wasn't his command. Nor was it the appropriate time. Let Hawkeye handle it once they'd secured the cave. They rounded a corner and froze.

"What in Fenrir's foot?" Thor asked.

In front of them stretched an enormous cavern, two hundred feet long by fifty feet wide. Hundreds of cot-like beds stretched as far as the eye could see, equipment hooked up to each one. All of the beds were empty except for six.

"The children," Steve said. He rushed to where six dark-skinned, tow-headed Melanesian island children lay, eyes upon, but otherwise not moving. Wires hooked them up to monitoring equipment and an intravenous drip. Their chests rose and fell, as though they were sleeping. Steve looked into the first child's open, vacant eyes, and saw the _same _small hole bored into their skull between the eye socked and the eyeball that Natasha had suffered.

"See!" Natasha hissed. "I told you!"

The children were oblivious to anything happening around them.

"What is this place?" Steve asked.

"I believe this is a hall of healing," Thor said, touching an electronic box and IV stand on one of the vacant beds. The cavern bore signs of having been hastily evacuated.

"Banner," Hawkeye called. "As soon as you finish up there, we have more patients for you."

Steve stared at the equipment. Not just monitoring equipment, but equipment to force-feed and gather bodily wastes. Around their heads sat a metal ring with bolts screwed into their skulls, immobilizing them. Electrodes fed into the metal skull ring from various electronics.

"I think this is how the Chitauri are brainwashing their victims," Steve said. For some reason, though, his gut screamed that wasn't the _whole _story.

X

_Note: the Melanesian islands of Vanuatu, formerly known as the New Hebrides, are volcanic in nature much like Hawaii. Ambrym has one of the most active volcanoes in the world, with three active cones and an enormous black heart of volcanic ash where nothing grows. The islands remain isolated and resistant to western culture despite their close proximity to Australia. _

_Vanuatu aka the New Hebrides was also home to fierce tribes of cannibals. The locals haven't cooked and eaten anybody (that we know of) for at least 100 years. But you never know! This is fanfiction, after all, where any absurdity can happen!_

_Be sure to hit that big blue button on the way out._


	20. Chapter 20

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Arrows the Wolf, garnet86, FinallyFallingAllOverAgain, imasuperhero2, Katya Jade, Anonymous, **__and __**blown-transistor. **__And just because I've got you all sucked into the story, don't let me get away with any bad writing!_

_Thanks for reading…_

X

Chapter 20

"So did you like, faint, being that close to Iron Man?" Cousin Lisa asked, her dark eyes wide with wonder. Lisa was fifteen years old. An age not so very far in Bernice's _own _past that she couldn't remember filling her walls with magazine posters of movie stars of whoever the beefcake-du-jour was featured in Tiger Beat that month.

"What was he like, what was he like?" the twins, thirteen year old cousins Amy and Amber clamored in unison.

"Well he was shorter than I thought he'd be," Bernice said, holding her hand a couple of inches above her own forehead. "With eyes that sparkled like a naughty boy about to put a frog down your dress."

"He is short?" Aunt Kamala asked, her voice lilting up and down with the accent all east Indians had. "But Iron Man seems so much larger than life on the television. How can he be short?" Aunt Kamala was Uncle Tom's wife.

"Well his _personality_ is certainly larger than life," Bernice laughed. "You've never seen a man fill a room with his presence until you've been in the same room as Tony Stark."

"So what did you build together?" the twins asked together. "Is he going to build you an Iron Man suit?"

Bernice paused, her mind running through the Company Secrets 101 lessons all Stark Industries employees had to learn. It gave her a new appreciation for how careful Grandma Peggy had needed to be whenever she'd told her grandchildren epic tales of battling Nazi's, communists, and the Japanese, and yet neatly dodged questions about information that needed to remain classified. Bernice gave her cousins an enigmatic smile, the _same _patient smile her grandmother had given whenever she knew more than she was telling.

"He built something really clever," Bernice said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial tone. "But I can't tell you or Iron Man's enemies might prevent him from saving the world the next time we need him."

"Oh!" the three younger cousins said in unison.

Her audience grew larger as several male cousins drifted over, plying her with questions about had she seen the Iron Man suit up close yet (no), had she met any aliens (no), and had she met any of the other members of the Avengers team (she wasn't at liberty to discuss it). It was fun, being the center of attention of her large extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles, but she was glad when Uncle Tom called out the burgers were done. Her cousins swarmed upon the feast like locusts, all talk of aliens and real life superheroes forgotten in favor of Great-Aunt Vera's potato salad.

Bernice made her way into Uncle Abraham's house after eating, utensils balanced precariously on top of sturdy reusable plastic plates as she threw them into a sink full of soapy hot water for recycling. She nodded to Aunt Vera swooshing off the worst of the food debris before loading them into the dishwasher. Bernice grabbed the overflowing pile of cloth napkins and threw them into the washing machine.

"Bernice?" great Uncle Abraham called from his study. "Could you come here when you're done, please?"

Bernice started the washer then headed in to speak to her great-uncle. At sixty-seven years old, Abraham Miller was now the de-facto leader of the sizeable clan grandma Peggy had left behind. Recently retired, Aunt Vera complained he was driving her up the wall with the renovations he was making to their home, still not sure what to do with himself after a lifetime of work. Bernice bounded into the study, remembering at the last moment she wasn't supposed to be acting like one of the giddy cousins anymore. As the second-eldest of the fourth generation, the cousins looked to _her _to be a ringleader, uh, role model.

Her uncle stood holding a timeworn scrapbook and some other papers, including a pile of stained composition-style notebooks that looked as though they'd spent time in a mudpit.

"Your grandmother wanted him to have these back," Uncle Abraham said. He had a wistful expression upon his face as he touched the top item of the pile, a framed sketch the entire Miller clan knew well. Grandma Peggy. Standing in front of a map of Europe. Generals buzzing around her as though _she _were in charge instead of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

"But…" Bernice started to protest. She clammed up. Several members of the family had snuck photocopies of that picture, but this was the original. Steve had as much of a right to the artwork drawn by his grandfather as _they _did. Perhaps even more? She remembered how alone he'd looked each time she'd seen him, even in the photographs fighting the alien invasion. Yes. He would want this. Bernice looked to the larger pile, sketchbooks and a photo album she had never seen before.

"How much do you know about Steve Rogers?" Uncle Abraham asked.

"Not much," Bernice said. "Just that he's the grandson of some guy Grandma knew during the war."

By the slight tensing of her uncle's jaw, she could tell there was more to the story he wasn't going to tell her. Although none of her aunts and uncles had gone into the intelligence work reportedly done by her grandmother, the fact their family had been privy to secrets which should never be told was anything _but _secret.

"She wanted _you _to give it to him," Uncle Abraham said. He held out the pile as though he were handing off responsibility for a heavy burden.

Bernice took the stack, the picture on the top catching her attention even though she'd seen it a million times. It was signed 'S. Rogers.' Steve had the same last name as his grandfather? Duh! She'd known he'd had the same first name, but it had never occurred to her he had the same _last_ name as well.

"I have no way to get in touch with him," Bernice said. "I already tried."

"You'll find him," Uncle Abraham said. "I've already put in inquiries through the same channels we used to find him in the first place."

Bernice knew _one _person who knew how to reach him … no … make that _two _people … but somehow she didn't think the two titans who ran the multinational corporation she worked for would appreciate so tiny a cog in their apparatus begging them to release classified information. But … _she _was more likely to cross paths with him again given where she worked, even if it took a long time, than any of her aunts and uncles.

"I'll get it to him somehow," Bernice said.

Her uncle tussled her hair as though she were still a small girl and stalked out of the room in search of Aunt Kamala's samosas. Bernice sat upon the wing chair, flipping through the first of the worn notebooks displaying sketch after sketch of soldiers engaged in routine duties. Soldiers digging trenches. Soldiers crawling through barbed wire. Soldiers seated around a table drinking beer and playing cards. Pictures of Adolf Hitler getting punched by Steve's predecessor, the _original _Captain America. She flipped past a picture of a monkey dressed in a star-spangled suit doing a balancing act upon a high wire and flipped to the next page, blank. All of the rest of the pages were blank.

She set the sketchbooks aside and flipped open the first page of the photo album to the faded, black-and-white photographs. She recognized Doctor Erskine, the scientist her great-uncle had been named after, but she had to squint at the small, slender man who stood next to him to realize it wasn't her _own _grandfather, William, who had been lanky but tall. No. Whoever this man was, she didn't recognize him. She flipped through several more pages of Erskine, the small man, groups of soldiers which included the small man, and finally a picture of the small man and doctor standing with another man who was familiar. Laughing black eyes, black hair, and a look of mischief just like his son had inherited. Howard Stark. There were pictures of the founder of Stark Industries plastered all over Stark Tower, although in _those _pictures he was older and wore a serious expression. It was good to know the younger Stark had not lost his enthusiasm for life the way the elder Stark had in his later years.

She flipped the page. The pictures changed. A man in a colorful suit punching Hitler in a line of USO dancers. The inspiration for the sketch, it appeared. There was a gap in dates of about one year, and then a picture of a group of tired, bedraggled soldiers walking into a military camp. The soldier who was front-and-center had an 'A' hastily painted on his helmet and a triangular shield. The _same _shield in the picture with the USO girls. Bernice carried the album over to the window to get better light.

"Shit," she murmured, her hair standing up on the back of her neck. "He looks just like him."

So Grandma Peggy _hadn't _been losing her marbles when she'd insisted the man on the television had to be the man she'd known. Bernice flipped through picture after picture of her grandmother's dead friend. Given how strongly Steve resembled his grandfather, she could see why Peggy had made that mistake. Some of the pictures had her grandmother in them, but most of them had been taken _by_ Peggy. Bernice flipped through photograph after photograph of a face she had burned into her _own _memory, so similar it gave her chills. Even with hereye for the human form, if not for the fact these photographs were dated 1944 to 1945, she would have sworn they were the same man.

In most of the earlier photos, Peggy had stood staring straight ahead, shoulders ramrod straight, while Steve's grandfather had been turned towards Peggy as though he wished she would give him the time of day. In the last few, however, the situation had reversed itself. It was Peggy staring at the man with the haunted eyes, her lips forever frozen as if she were about to speak to a man who carried far too many responsibilities even for _his _broad shoulders. The _same _haunted look she had seen in Steve's eyes the first time she had ever laid eyes upon him.

Bernice looked up at the enormous painting of Grandma Peggy above the fireplace, wearing with an enigmatic smile two-thirds of the Miller clan had inherited.

"I'll make sure he gets these," Bernice promised. "You're right. He has as much of a right to have these as _we _do."

X

Several days later, a worn brown envelope came though the Stark Industries inter-office mail. Inside was a pink post-it note with a Brooklyn address. It was simply signed '-P-'.

X

_Note: okay okay okay! Enough stringing my readers along giving Steve a suitable period of time to grieve for his lost dream! Bernice still doesn't 'get it' but, in her situation, would YOU? That would be almost as mind blowing as having a psychotic killer dude in a black mask and cape say 'Luke … I am your father!'_

_Happy Fourth of July everyone! If it rains out our parade like the weather forecast –says- it will here, perhaps I'll have time to finish up the second half of this chapter? It's all written in my head. I just need time to type it out…_

_Be sure to hit the big blue button on your way out the door! Reviews give me fireworks!_


	21. Chapter 21

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**FinallyFallingAllOverAgain, GhibliGirl91, AoiKuroNekoSan, Penny Tortoiseshell, LEPrecon, tardiswing, Arrows the Wolf, Katya Jade, **__and __**blown-transistor.**_

_For those who asked about the pink post-it note with the –P-, if you saw Iron Man I, that was how Pepper signed the note on the Mach 1 arc reactor with the stand that said 'proof that Tony Stark has a heart.'_

_Thanks for reading…_

X

Chapter 21

"Pankration," Bernice read aloud. The sign looked newly painted, a dark-brown-and-gold logo that looked like two Olympiads wrestling on one side of the sign, the same two figures engaged in martial arts kicking on the other. She glanced at the pink post-it note and confirmed it was the correct address. The ancient door and windows appeared to be real glass, not Plexiglas like most store fronts in the area. White café-style curtains blocked the goings-on inside from casual view, but could be overlooked by standing on tiptoe. The sidewalk was cracked and stained, but the building had a neatness about it that contrasted with the rough neighborhood. She pushed through the door, a small bell chiming her arrival.

The sound of grunts and laughter greeted her ears as soon as she stepped inside, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the change of lighting. Two men exchanged punches in a boxing ring. Others engaged in fitness activities involving gym equipment and weights. The old-fashioned kind. Not the fancy Nautilus equipment Bernice used at the Stark Industries fitness center. The floor was rubber tile, long past its useful life, but the walls and ceiling had been freshly painted. On the far wall, a partially completed mural depicted the same two ancient Greek Olympiads on the sign outside, a drop cloth and ladder propped to one side as though the artist would come back and finish the work soon. The entire gym smelled of paint, sweat and disenfectant.

Laughter caught her attention. At the rear of the gym, a group of teenagers ribbed a skinny Hispanic kid wearing DDP (Dominicans Don't Play) gang colors hanging off a pair of rings suspended from the ceiling. Beneath him, a second boy wearing rival Asian Boyz blue gang colors steadied the kid as he dangled, trying to pull himself up.

"C'mon, Lupe!" half the kids said. "You can do it!"

"Get that scrawny 'spic ass of yours up on them rings," the other half hooted.

Bernice noted it was the supposedly 'rival' gang which was cheering the skinny kid on. The kids wearing the athlete's own gang colors were the ones ribbing him, but the ribbing appeared to be good-natured.

"Can I help you, miss?"

An elderly Hispanic man squinted at her with an enormous grin. Several teeth were missing in the front of his mouth. The man was small, but wiry, with the knobby knuckles and elbows you might see in somebody who had done hard physical labor their entire lives.

"I'm looking for Steve Rogers," Bernice said. "I'm a … friend."

"Ah," the old man said, his grin growing wider. "Didn't think you were here to sign up. We don't get too many ladies in this place." The old man pointed to the gang kids who had caught Bernice's interest. "He's over there."

Bernice ignored the curious stares. Most of the men who worked out here appeared to be prize fighters who were long past their prime. She moved towards the group of boys, noting the kid on the rings had pulled himself up and raised his feet to balance level with his waist. Both groups of boys cheered and the skinny kid dropped to the ground. It struck her how much the boys mannerisms and colorful clothing reminded her of a flock of exotic birds. She adjusted the bag she carried slung over one shoulder, wishing fervently she'd brought her _own _sketch pad to capture the images on paper.

"See? All it takes is determination and lots of practice," a voice called over the cacophony. Steve's voice. "Eight hundred and eighty-eight times it takes for the average person to master a new physical skill."

"Some of us take more," the skinny kid, Lupe, said.

"If it takes more, it takes more," Steve's voice said. "What's important is that you never give up."

"Steve, Steve!" the boys clamored. "You do it."

"Yeah, Steve!" one of the older men in the ring shouted across the room, spitting out his mouth guard. "Put your money where your mouth is, hotshot! Let's see _you _do it!"

The older men laughed, in on some inside joke. Bernice hung back, not wishing to interrupt whatever class Steve was teaching.

"How can I refuse?" Steve's voice called from the throng. "Boys. You'd better give me some room."

The boys stepped back, giving Bernice a glimpse as he stepped onto the stack of mats, his back turned to her. He leaped to grab the rings and pushed them out to the side in a pose reminiscent of a crucifixion statue, triceps bulging as he held his own body weight using nothing but the muscles in his arms.

"Iron cross!" one of the boys yelled.

"Show Lupe how the L-sit is _supposed _to be done!" several of the boys shouted.

His back muscles rippled like a stallion running a race as he pulled the rings closer to push his torso up, his form more steady and perfect than any Olympic gymnast Bernice had ever seen on the television. His legs came up in a perfect 45 degree angle, the move the skinny kid had tried a moment before, and held the pose, and then moved his legs even further up, as though he were a vice, to touch his ankles to his nose.

"Aw, man!" the kid in the Asian Boyz color shouted. "That's too easy for _you! _Show us what you've really got!"

"Guzochy!"

"O'Neill!"

"No … Deltchev!"

"Deltchev! Deltchev!"

Bernice had no idea what the boys shouted out, but she stared, memorizing the way his muscles rippled as they forced his body to assume each pose so she could draw it later. Steve hung horizontal to the ground, as though her were about to do a push-up, and slowly moved both feet together _backwards _to rear up into a reverse handstand. He held the pose, then swung around faster several times, then moved his legs into a straddle to touch his ankles to his wrists, holding the pose while the boys cheered.

"Nakayama!"

"No … Balandin. Steve. Do a Balandin!"

Shit! Bernice didn't even know guys _could _be that flexible. She couldn't help but notice the firm shape of his ass, the way his muscles rippled beneath his sweatpants as he held, then released the pose, swung around, then moved back into the position that was parallel to the floor. Bernice forgot to breath as he held a position that defied gravity, as though he were floating weightlessly above the floor in a relaxing nap. He then moved both legs backwards up into a handstand, giving her a marvelous upside-down view of six-pack abdominals clearly visible through the sweaty wifebeater plastered to his chest. What struck her was not how difficult the moves he did must be, but the expression of utter peace upon his face as he held the pose.

"Van Gelder!"

"No … Jovetech!"

"Jovetech! Jovetech! Jovetech!" the boys began to chant. Behind her, the older men had stopped what they were doing and were chanting as well.

Steve suspended himself between the rings parallel to the floor as though laying on a board, did several push-ups mid-air, then moved his legs back up behind him again into the handstand. He lowered himself, still upside-down, all the way down so his arms were pressed tightly along his ribcage, his shoulders below the rings, then forced out the rings so his arms were parallel in an upside-down iron cross. He then forced his perfectly stiff form up even further back into the handstand.

"Jovetech!" the boys cheered. Even the older men cheered, many of them dropping their weights so they could clap.

Steve released the pose, swung around the rings several times so fast he was nothing but a blur, and then let go of the rings, somersaulting three times mid-air before landing upon the mats as lightly as a cat. Bernice realized that _she _was panting heavier than Steve was! She held her breath, her face flushed as she tried to convince her heart to stop racing.

"Don't ever let anyone tell you _any _sport is for sissies," Steve said, oblivious to Bernice's presence. He high-fived the boys, some of whom had boxing gloves and head guards. "All that matters is you give it your best shot. Lupe … good job! I'll see you all next Saturday."

"You gonna be here?" the skinny Hispanic kid, Lupe, asked.

"You know how it is," Steve said, bumping fists with the kid. "Work. If the bossman calls, I've got to go running. But if I'm not here, Rodriguez will give you sparring lessons. Don't let his age fool you. He's still the fastest welterweight in Brooklyn."

The boys trailed out of the gym, leaving Steve standing on the pile of mats. He looked up, meeting Bernice's gaze, and froze. A puzzled expression danced across his face. Surprise. Hope. Disappointment. Her heart fell as he donned that serious expression she was used to seeing him wear and leaned down to grab a towel, muscles rippling beneath glistening skin as he wiped the sweat off his brow.

"Bernice," Steve said, wiping sweat off his hand as he stepped forward to greet her. "This is a surprise."

"I … um …" Bernice stammered, trying to force herself not to pant like a dog in heat. Crap. Crap. Crap. Her mouth opened and shut, no sound coming out as she felt as though she wanted to faint. Words failing, she grabbed the bag she'd brought with her and shoved it towards his chest.

"My, um, grandmother," Bernice blurted out. "She wanted you to have these."

Steve took the bag, his hands trembling in a way they hadn't while he'd been defying gravity upon the rings. He opened it and saw the sketch pads. He swallowed, his exhalation audible as he slid the dirt-stained notebooks out and opened the first one. His eyes had that same sorrowful look she'd noticed the first time she had ever laid eyes upon him.

"Thank you," he said, his voice filled with emotion. Her grandmother must have told him she had these, because without even going through them, it was obvious he knew what they contained.

"There's … um … pictures," Bernice stuttered, pointing to the crumbling scrapbook at the bottom of the stack. "Of your … um … grandfather. I didn't realize … my grandmother … you look a lot like him, you know?"

Steve opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it. A muscle twitched in his cheek, that same unreadable expression her uncles had whenever they had more to say and would not say it. They stood there, two strangers who had nothing in common now that Bernice had delivered the package.

"Well … um," Bernice said, feeling embarrassed. "I just … um … gotta … go." She gave him a sheepish little wave and turned, deriding herself for her foolish fantasies. She had _wished _there would be something to talk about with the stranger who had taken down an alien invasion, but the only thing they had in common was her dead grandmother. She nodded politely at the gym manager and yanked open the door to the outside.

"Bernice?"

Bernice froze, not sure she had imagined him calling her name.

"Would you …uh…"

Steve moved towards her with surprising speed, an awkwardness to his gait she had never seen before.

"Um … would you like to go get a cup of … uh … coffee … or … something?" His voice trailed off, as though he expected her to say 'no.'

Bernice looked up to meet his eyes. Such brilliant, blue eyes. They were filled with indecision and … fear? She remembered something her grandmother had once said about him. 'He has no idea how to talk to a woman...'

Steve was shy!

Bernice didn't know how to talk to drop-dead gorgeous superheroes, but she _did _know a thing or two about coaxing her geeky, reclusive artist friends out of their shells. At this point, what did she have to lose? She took a deep breath, steadying her nerves, and gave him her most reassuring smile.

"Sure," she said, pretending she was speaking in the matter-of-fact tone her grandmother had used whenever she was ordering everybody around. "I'll wait while you go get cleaned up."

Looking as though he had just dodged a bullet, Steve gave her an embarrassed smile and called over the gym manager to show her around. He raced up a rickety set of stairs, two at a time, to go get cleaned up. Rodriguez showed her the facility, his toothless grin wide as he introduced her to the other athletes and showed off improvements they were making to resurrect the gym from the dead. Pankration was an ancient Olympic competitive sport. The modern-day equivalent would be mixed martial arts. The partially completed mural, it turned out, was being painted by Steve.

Bernice's eyes drank in the feast his talent was bringing to life upon the wall, his art every bit as beautiful as _he _was. His talent would compare favorably to any student at the New York Institute of Visual Arts. It finally dawned upon her why her grandmother had wanted _her _to bring her superhero friend the notebooks after she was gone.

They actually had something in common!

X

_Note: Many think of male gymnastics as a 'sissy sport,' but it is one of the most physically demanding sports on the planet. This is an Olympic year, so be sure to watch the men compete and have fun oogling their muscles bulge as they swing around those tiny rings. A Van Gelder and a Jovetech are two of the most difficult physical maneuvers in the world. Any man that can perform –those- moves would be physically capable of swinging up into an alien spaceship and taking out an entire squadron of bad guys!_

_For some serious eye-candy –until- then, you can see these named moves at:_

_www +dot+ youtube +dot+ com / watch?v=-U_mgXrYbY&feature=related_

_(replace +dot+ with a dot and close up the spaces … foolish fanfic net weblink restrictions!)_

_Plankation was a competitive martial arts-type sport practiced from the earliest Olympics until the newly Christianized Byzantian emperor banned it around 393 AD. Only men were allowed to attend. Most events were competed naked as the loose-fitting togas of the time were not conducive to grappling. Other than leather wrappings wrapped around combatant's knuckles, the sport was fought no-holds-barred. The only rules were no mayhem (biting off chunks of flesh when you bit your opponent) or poking out their eyes. Since this occurred quite frequently in the heat of things and athletes occasionally died, two judges equipped with canes would beat whichever opponent got carried away until they released the 'illegal' hold, but would not stop the fight. Plankration also served as a training method for the army. One famous athlete defeated a heavily armed champion in a contest before Alexander the Great using nothing but his Plankration holds._

_When the Olympics were revived in 1896, all of the ancient sports –except- Plankation were included as events. There has been some movement lately (given the rise in popularity of mixed martial arts) to revive the ancient sport as an exhibition event, but thus far, the International Olympic committee has declined._


	22. Chapter 22

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**AoiKuroNekoSan, blown-transistor, GhibliGirl91, lazarus73, Penny Tortoiseshell, Mystewitch **__and__** Katya Jade**_.

_My special thanks to __**AoiKuroNekoSan**__, who pointed out Bernice was uncustomarily bold in the last chapter when she suddenly shifted gears from barely being able to say 'hello' to bossing Steve around. The moment she realized he was shy, she began treating him like one of her geeky artist guy friends and not some hot superhero dude she's been lusting after like a she-wolf in heat, but I didn't –say- that in the first draft._

_Rule #1: The reader is always right._

_Rule #2: When the reader is not right, see Rule #1._

_I added another sentence to that effect. Whew! Bad writing … avoided! Must keep my characters in-character!_

_Thanks for reading and reviewing everyone!_

X

Chapter 22

Steve wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at his own reflection.

"What are you doing?"

The reflection didn't answer.

"You're being polite, that's what you're doing. The girl just gave up her Saturday morning to bring you something you had no right to ask her for. The least you can do is buy her a cup of coffee!"

Steve combed his hair and checked his chin for razor stubble. It had only been several hours since he had last showered and shaved. He had no excuse for delaying. It felt as though he had a swarm of butterflies in his stomach. He hadn't felt this jittery around a woman since … since …

"Who am I kidding?" Steve told the reflection. "You asked her for coffee because all you've been doing is thinking about her ever since her grandmother died."

The reflection was kind enough not to remind him he'd also _dreamed _about Bernice the last three nights in a row. Which was why he'd been shocked to come flying off the still rings he'd been showboating on and find Bernice standing there, watching him. Not that there had been anything … inappropriate … about the dreams. They'd just been … dreams.

'_I feel shorter,' Bucky said as a woman gave him a disdainful glare and walked away. He grabbed the beer they'd just both ordered. 'Now I know what it feels like to be you.'_

'_I don't know,' Steve said. 'It was a lot easier being me when I was still … me.'_

'_Tell that to THEM,' Bucky said. He nodded towards several dames eyeballing Steve as though he were a piece of meat. Big band music played in the background, GI's from all over the world tearing up the dance floor with the British girls, but there was now an earthy undertone to the music, a sixth band member playing the drums. _

_A commotion at the entrance to the Stork Club drew their attention. A striking black-haired woman wearing a fitted black tee-shirt and ripped jeans walked in, her attire in stark contrast to the way the other patrons were dressed. She looked lost. Several men approached and asked her to dance, but she waved them off, clutching her art portfolio to her chest as though it were a shield._

'_Ex-excuse me,' Bernice asked. 'I'm looking for someone.'_

'_Well you just found him,' Bucky said, moving into his classic dame-schmoozing pose. 'Can I buy you a drink?'_

_Bernice gave Bucky a sweet smile. Steve felt a stab of jealousy._

'_No thank you,' Bernice said. 'I'm looking for someone special. I was told I could find him here.'_

'_No one here but me,' Bucky said. 'Would you like to dance?'_

'_No thank you,' Bernice said. She turned and looked at Steve as though she could see straight into his soul. 'I'm waiting for the right guy.'_

_Steve's breath hitched in his throat. Her eyes were as dark as the arctic waters he'd been imprisoned in for 67 years, and yet there was warmth. How he wished to crawl back into that dark, quiet place and pretend the drumbeat marring the perfection of the big band, the strange moves the dancing couples added to their jitterbugs, did not exist. These were not Peggy's eyes. They were someone else's entirely. But for the first time in his life, it occurred to him they were a bridge between his time and the strange dance taking place in front of him._

_Bernice turned back to Bucky._

'_If you find him, will you please tell him that I'm looking for him?'_

'_Yeah, sure.' Bucky said._

_Bernice turned and walked out of the room, some of the GI's following her as though she were the pied piper despite her unremarkable attire. Steve fought the urge to run after her._

'_You going to let her get away?' a familiar voice asked._

_Steve turned to see Peggy leaning back against the bar in her red dress. She took a drag of a cigarette and blew smoke into a burly GI's face who'd come up to buy her a drink._

'_What?' Steve asked._

'_I said are you going to just let her get away like that?' Peggy said. She gave him that wolfish grin she'd always had right before she kicked some overly cocky boot camp trainee right in the crotch._

'_I … you…' Steve stammered. _

_It was Peggy, but something felt different. –He-_ _felt different. A tall, lanky man with a mop of unruly blonde hair came up and asked Peggy for a dance. She gave the man her red-gloved hand, a tender smile lighting up her face as he led her out onto the dance floor. They moved like a couple who had danced together for an entire lifetime._

'_Go after her,' Peggy called over her husband's shoulder. 'If you let her get away, you'll never find another like her.'_

_The dancing couples closed around Peggy and her husband, leaving Steve standing alone at the bar, not even Bucky there to share his misery any longer. The music changed, the couples erupting into jerky movements that made no sense as a bone-jarring rhythm shook the walls. The GI's were gone. Bucky was gone. Peggy was gone. Even the bartender had been replaced with a buxom waitress with cleavage that barely covered her nipples. Steve looked towards the doorway and saw that Bernice had gone, too._

_He was alone…_

Who the hell was he kidding? He'd asked Bernice to go out for a cup of coffee because she was the closest thing he'd discovered this day and age, except for a few washed-up ex-veteran prize fighters not much younger than _his _true age, who bore any semblance to normalcy since he'd woken up 67 years in the future.

"Just don't say anything stupid," he said to the reflection. He yanked on some clothes, agonizing over what he should wear. Coffee. He had asked her to go out for a cup of coffee. Wearing a tie would be … desperate. Stepping out of his private quarters, he saw she stood surrounded by his gym clients discussing the mural he'd started to paint. He realized he'd forgotten his wallet. Racing back into his room, he grabbed it, glancing down at the precious stack of pictures Bernice had brought him. His _own _past.

Breathe. Just breathe. He did his best to not trip down the stairs and appear nonchalant as he came up behind her, totally oblivious to his approach as she explained the finer aspects of ancient Grecian art to her spellbound audience of washed up prize fighters, body builders, and other men of action who otherwise wouldn't be caught dead at an art exhibit. The gym clients gave Steve a knowing look, one customer who'd proven a capable sparring partner giving him a wink when Bernice wasn't looking.

"There's a nice little coffee shop just around the corner," Steve suggested. He stepped between Bernice and the gym members, some of them single and considering themselves to be ladies men. "It's nothing fancy. But they have good service."

"Okay," Bernice said, smiling up at him. She glanced down and then peered up again through her long, black lashes.

Not sure what to do with his hands, he stuck them in his pockets as they walked, both silent except to direct her to cross the street and turn left. The coffee shop was a run-down old place, the kind of café that had countertop service and little stools that spun around while you waited for an overworked waitress to get everybody their grub. Thelma was long past retirement age, but she knew every customer by name and remembered the stories she drew out of them like a knitter unraveling a ball of yarn. It was a service Steve had taken for granted back in 1945, but which was now non-existent in a fast-food world.

"The usual?" Thelma asked.

"Just coffee," Steve said. They both knew he'd already been in once this morning, just as he was at 6:00 on the nose_ every_ morning for his usual breakfast of two eggs, toast, hash browns and a cup of joe.

"And what will you have, Miss?" Thelma asked as she plunked a coffee cup onto the counter and poured Steve a cup. Without being asked, she plunked down a sugar shaker and tiny pitcher of cream, the exact same ingredients Steve added to his coffee _every _morning.

"Do you have … um … a vanilla chai?" Bernice asked.

Thelma laughed.

"We've got coffee, decaf, and tea," Thelma said. "But if you want to add your own vanilla, I'll see what Enrique can dig up in the back."

"Just … coffee," Bernice said. "With Splenda."

Steve frowned. Should he have brought her someplace fancier? He avoided the newfangled coffee shops like the plague, the dizzying array of exotic-sounding choices of coffee, coffee-sizes, and things you could add to coffee making his head spin. Why would people want coffee, a beverage you drank when you were tired and needed to perk up, to require a Ph.D. to simply order?

"No Splenda," Thelma said. "Just Sweet-and-Low. Would that be alright?"

"That would be fine," Bernice said. She picked up the pink packets, shook them, and tore them open without enthusiasm. Thelma came out with a small bottle of vanilla extract, which Bernice waved off. "No … thanks. That's alright. Do you have skim milk?"

"No skim," Thelma said. "Would regular milk be okay?"

"Regular milk would be fine," Bernice said. She stared straight ahead, their stools locked into facing the counter and the waitress instead of each other. A setup designed for single men like _him _who had no choice but to eat alone. They sat, shoulder to shoulder, unable to make eye contact unless they turned their stools. He did that so he could see if the dark eyes he had dreamed about were real and ended up knocking into her with his knee, nearly knocking her off her stool.

"Maybe we should, um, sit in one of the booths?" Steve said. He pointed to three red-and-white Formica booths, the vinyl on the seats torn and taped back together with matching duct tape. He usually avoided them because he came here for Thelma's company as much as the food, but he hadn't come here _now _to see Thelma for the second time today. He was here because…

Why was he here?

He was here because he'd been having strange notions lately about looking up Peggy's pretty little granddaughter and he wanted to give himself a hard dose of reality. That's why. It had been so much easier dealing with Bernice when he had simply thought of her as Peggy's granddaughter instead of … of …

What _did _he think of her?

He didn't know.

"So … do you eat here a lot?" Bernice asked, pinning him with those perceptive brown eyes that could see straight into his soul. The shape and intelligence dancing behind them were like Peggy's, but there was an additional quality he hadn't noticed before. The eyes of an artist who didn't miss any detail, no matter how small. Steve felt as though he were suddenly being put under a microscope.

"Um…"

A simple question. Why was he suddenly so tongue-tied? It wasn't as if he'd been having sultry dreams about her. In fact, in the dream, she never spoke directly to him, only to Bucky. It felt like one of those times Bucky had dragged him along on a double-date and the friend-of-a-girlfriend had turned her up her nose because he was a scrawny asthmatic.

"I'm sorry," Bernice said, color creeping into her cheeks. "I didn't mean to interrupt your day. I just … none of us had any idea to get in touch with you until Pepper gave me this note." She pulled a tiny pink note out of her purse and held it in front of her as though it were a hall pass in high school. "I was too … I'm sorry I didn't speak to you more at the funeral. I was too overwhelmed to be thinking of anybody but myself."

There was a note of regret in her voice that drew Steve out of his own self-flagellation. He hadn't been deliberately excluded? Of course he hadn't been excluded. Nobody except Pepper had any idea how to contact him. Just because he had prevailed upon the CEO of Stark Industries to give Bernice a job didn't mean the talented young artist would feel comfortable barging into her boss's office and asking for his address. Especially not her first few weeks on the job!

"I'm glad you came," Steve said, reaching out to take her hand. He realized he was being too forward and jerked back, accidentally spilling some of the coffee from his own cup. Bernice reached to blot the spill and knocked her _own _coffee cup clean over, leaping up just in time to avoid the hot liquid spilling into her lap. Steve jumped up, too, not because he was at risk of getting a lap full of coffee, but because he was afraid she'd run right out the door and never speak to him again. They both grabbed napkins out of the container on the table and bent down to the floor, crashing their skulls together hard enough for Steve to see stars.

"I'm sorry," Bernice said with a laugh. She gave him a sheepish grin. "They don't let me out much! I'm getting as bad as the engineers Pepper keeps locked up in the basement of Stark Industries and never lets see the light of day!"

He realized Bernice was every bit as nervous as _he _was. Peggy had said Bernice favored him, only instead of acting like one of the offensively brazen women who had propositioned him ever since Doctor Erskine had turned him into a super-soldier, Bernice was acting like…

Him.

Bernice was acting every bit as nervous as _he _was acting. And he was acting nervous _back_. No wonder Peggy had started intruding into his dreams telling him to stop being so darned … thick!

"That's okay," Steve said. "They don't let _me _out much, either." They both kneeled on the floor, mopping up the spilled coffee together with a rag given to them by the elderly waitress so Thelma wouldn't have to get down on her swollen knees.

Bernice laughed. A delightful, tinkling sound. Like sleigh bells on a horse-drawn carriage. The ice broken, they ordered fresh coffees and talked about the one interest they knew they both shared. Art. Bernice instinctively knew all talk about his work as an Avenger was off-limits, while _he _managed to neatly dodge the few references she made to his so-called 'grandfather' without actually lying to her. It was the easiest conversation he'd had with a woman since Peggy had died. Three coffees later, he walked Bernice to the entrance of the subway station and promised he would call her.

It wasn't until he'd gotten back to the gym that he realized he'd been so giddy he'd forgotten to ask for her telephone number…

X

_Note: Aw! Man! Steve! What a knucklehead! How much you want to bet Peggy's going to be back in those dreams of his, scolding him for being such a dunce? But Steve promised Bernice he'd call her, and we all know Steve Rogers keeps his promises. The question is … how?_

_[*snicker*]_

_The next chapter will be some more intrigue, a little action, and a bit of 'eating your hat with hat-sauce.' Be sure to hit the big blue button and tell me what you think! _


	23. Chapter 23

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**The M.H. R, XxAimTheFlamexX, AoiKuroNekoSan, actressen, Penny Tortoiseshell, Arrows the Wolf, Undapper Thoughts, Anonymous, GhibliGirl91, blown-transistor, Adamantium Rose, Mystewitch, **__and __**SoxxyMoxxyFanfics.**_

_Fan art! This story needs some fan art! Are there any readers itching to draw a scene of Steve on the still rings or a comic-strip of Steve and Bernie awkwardly spilling coffee on one another? Fanfiction is meant to be an interactive experience. If you draw it, I will post a link to your Deviant Art or Flickr account!_

_And now a little intrigue, a wee bit of action, and Steve eating crow. Thanks for reading and reviewing everyone!_

X

Chapter 23

Steve ducked, but not fast enough to avoid the second half of the spinning back kick Natasha swung his way. He grabbed her leg and held it, preventing her from completing a kick to his temple. Natasha yelped with frustration and punched him twice in the side of the head, causing him to see stars. He ignored the pain and threw her to the ground, raising his boot to stomp on her midsection. She grabbed his foot and rolled, throwing him off-balance. He fell. She leaped on top of him, going straight for his throat. At the last moment, Steve bent in half, wrapped his ankles around her neck, and flipped her backwards hard upon the ground, pinning her. She shrieked in anger and flailed, trying to get up, but could not.

"Enough of the horseplay!" Nick Fury shouted. "We've got a briefing to conduct!"

Steve released his hold and rolled to his feet, lending her a hand to get up. Just in case, he kept his right knee bent for extra balance. Giving him a smile of pure innocence, Natasha took his hand and yanked him forward, knocking him off-balance. Steve was ready for it. Instead of fighting the fall, he rolled forward in a move any first-year gymnastics student learns and landed upright in a ta-da position, turning magnanimously once more to re-offer Natasha his hand.

"Way to go, Cap!" Tony Stark and Thor both clapped from the sidelines of the sparring area.

"You're getting to know my moves," Natasha groused, this time getting up for real.

"Only some of them," Steve said. "I may be an old dog, but I usually only get burned once before learning new tricks."

The eyes which stared back at him were watchful. Wary and alert. The Black Widow's normal demeanor. Ever since the incident on Ambrym, Steve had not detected that peculiar 'off' sensation in her reaction time, but his gut still whispered 'be careful.' Natasha killed without remorse when ordered, but killing someone _against _a direct order, even an alien, was unusual for her. Had it been anyone else … maybe. _Most _people were prone to heat-of-the-moment fits of passion if properly aroused. Even him. The aliens _had, _after all, tried to suck Natasha's brains out of her head. Or that was what they were _calling_ the strange injuries she and the Melanesian islanders had all suffered at the hands of the Chitauri.

"Enough of the foreplay," Tony Stark said with a grin. He waggled his eyebrows at them, earning a snicker from both Banner and Thor.

Clint was not amused. Steve had begun to notice a strain between Natasha and her lover … if that's what they really were. Somehow, he thought so. Or at least they _had _been before the weirdness had started, though he wasn't so sure about right now. If he didn't know any better, he would swear Natasha was flirting with _him _these days instead of Clint. Steve gave Clint a friendly a grin to communicate he was not a threat. Clint glowered and stalked in the direction Nick Fury had gone. Towards the maximum security area of the Triskelion.

After going through several layers of passcodes, guards, and retinal scanners, they gained access to the subject of today's briefing. The captured Chitauri sat in a bulletproof glass observation area similar to the one used to inter Loki on the U.S.S. Gerald Ford. The creature glanced up at the audience that had come in to gawk at it then feigned disinterest, even though they were certain it watched their every move. Natasha came in behind them. She walked up to stand in front of the glass, taunting the creature with her presence. _That _got a reaction. The creature hissed and moved as far away from Natasha as possible, its six-fingered hands tugging nervously upon the bandages covering the stitches in its neck.

"Doctor Banner," Nick Fury said. "You have the floor."

"As you can see," Bruce said, "it survived. I managed to stitch its throat back together, but there appears to be damage to its vocal cords. All it can do is hiss."

"For all we know," Tony Stark said. "Maybe that's all its capable of."

"Perhaps," Banner said. "But the Chitauri have fully developed vocal cords and a voice box the same as we have. A bit thicker, which means its voice would be lower than ours, but it _should _be capable of speech."

Steve stared at the creature of nightmare which had been haunting Earth's dreams since the Chitauri had poured through the dimensional portal opened by the Tesseract Cube. Basically humanoid, it was taller and more muscular than a human, with a blue-grey cast to its skin similar to a battleship. The torso and limbs could pass as human if the creature dressed up in loose-fitting human clothing, but there was no mistaking the face for human. Although it had the large, rounded brain pan of a humanoid, it had the face and fangs of a lizard. Was _this _what the mysterious 'Other' Loki had allied with kept hidden under its long, black hooded robe?

Was this what Herr Klaiser had really looked like back in 1945? After all, if Red Skull had been able to hide his face beneath a mask, why not one of these creatures? But, no… Red Skull had once been human. Herr Klaiser's origins were less well known. The SS leader had possessed the height and strength of one of these creatures, but there would have been no hiding the oversized hands and feet with extra digits or the misshapen jaw beneath a mask. Steve _had _seen Herr Klaiser's face and hands the first few times he'd interacted with him, though he'dtaken to wearing a cloth over his head for a period of time after Steve had thrown his shield at him during a battle. Just for a moment, it had appeared he'd taken the Nazi SS officer's head clean off. An illusion caused by distance and the dim light, no doubt, as no body had ever been found. Incidents involving the Nazi leader had continued and, some time later, he'd seen Herr Klaiser with his own eyes, so it was more likely the Nazi leader had just been injured.

"Any luck communicating with it?" Steve asked, noting the way the creature _pretended _to look at the floor, but glanced repeatedly at them, undoubtedly trying to size up the situation. It was a prisoner of war. Had the roles been reversed, Steve would have been doing the same.

"They're just drones," Natasha said, her voice devoid of emotion. "You're wasting your time."

"We don't know that," Tony Stark said, pacing in front of the cage. "It sure seemed pretty intelligent to _me _when Banner was saving its life."

"I agree," Banner said.

"It was smart enough to plead for its life," Steve said. "Or at least that's what I _think _it was doing." He turned to Natasha. "At the very least, it was smart enough to understand I was the only thing standing between it and Natasha."

Natasha gave him an icy glare. They'd had words after the last mission about her behavior in the cave. Fury refused to bust her down until she pulled her act together because they desperately needed her skill-set, but Steve had already made up his mind that the next mission he led, Natasha was going to be relegated to a less critical role. Fury had given him the green-light to lead now that he'd stopped moping about losing Peggy. The _real _reason, he suspected, that Natasha was suddenly going out of her way to be friendly and Clint wouldn't stop glaring at him.

Steve had no talent for charming women, but _leading _them was a different story. Pouting, moping, fits of temper or the cold shoulder would not dissuade him from paying attention to that uneasy feeling that sat in his gut. Natasha just hadn't been … right … since she'd been injured. It was part of the reason he'd been sparring with her more than usual lately. He _wanted _to trust her again. He just … didn't.

"Thor," Nick Fury called out. "Any intel from the All Father?"

"The All Father has entered the Odinsleep," Thor said. "My brother's misbehavior has been very trying on him and opening the Bifrost without the benefit of the machinery we'd built to dampen the negative side effects of the Tesseract Cube are taking their toll. My mother told him if he didn't rest voluntarily while things are quiet, where we have a hope of awakening him if the need is great, than she was going to have Heimdell knock him senseless before he kills himself from overwork."

As much as mortals thought of the Asgardians as gods, Steve was finding out they were as mortal as any human. Only more genetically evolved, longer lived, and more powerful. Asgardians were to _him _what _he _was to a regular human. Tony Stark had taken to calling Steve the 'Asgardian Missing Link' and making monkey sounds behind his back to get Thor to laugh. Steve was glad Tony and Thor were warming up to one another, but not at his expense.

"Nappy time?" Tony Stark said. "That's inconvenient. So you made a trip back for nothing?"

"Not … entirely," Thor said. "I interrogated my brother."

The Avengers all perked up with interest. Thor looked markedly uncomfortable and more than a little ashamed.

"And?" Nick Fury said. From the look on Fury's face, Thor had already briefed him.

"It is always hard to tell whether Loki is lying," Thor said, his expression exasperated. "He peppers the lies with just enough truth to make it believable." He gestured towards their blue-grey skinned captive. "My brother said _those _are not the Chitauri."

"What?" they all exclaimed.

"But I've autopsied hundreds of them from the battle over New York," Banner exclaimed. "These _are _the guys that came down from the hole in the sky and blew midtown Manhattan to hell!"

"Yes," Nick Fury said. "They are."

"What else did Loki say?" Steve asked, noting the way the Chitauri … or whatever breed of soldier he was … watched while pretending _not _to watch from inside the cage. The creature couldn't hear them. But it could see how they reacted to one another.

"He didn't," Thor said, throwing up his arms in exasperation. "He just laughed and told me we had no idea what we were up against."

"You should have tortured it out of him," Clint said. He made eye contact with each of them. "When are we going to admit we're out of our league and do what is necessary?"

"This is my brother thou speak of," Thor growled. His hand unconsciously reached down to caress the handle of Mjolnir strapped to his belt.

"We're Americans," Steve said. "We don't torture people."

Nick Fury was silent. Natasha snorted with disgust.

"The Asgardians are dicking us around!" Clint snarled, pointing at Thor. "We should have never let him take Loki off the planet."

"And we were going to contain the little bastard … how?" Nick Fury reminded him.

"Then we need to go to Asgard _ourselves_ and demand they stop pussy-footing around the little weasel!" Clint said.

"Americans don't torture," Tony Stark said.

"But…"

"American's don't torture," Tony Stark repeated, his expression so fierce and intense it made Steve momentarily wonder 'who are you and what have you done with my pain-in-the-butt teammate.' Tony tapped his chest, the arc reactor beneath his shirt making a light 'clinking' sound. "In case you forget, I had this thing cut into my chest _without anesthesia._ We don't do things like that in this country. Not if you want _me _to remain a part of the team!"

"Who the hell needs you?" Clint snarled. "You're not even a _real _Avenger!"

The others began to talk at once, the argument becoming heated as Fury tried to rein them in. Steve glanced over, expecting Natasha to jump in on Hawkeye's side, and noted she had walked over to stand in front of the glass cage, her expression emotionless and cold as she stared at the creature. The Chitauri … or whatever it really was … had curled up in the opposite corner as far away as it could get from her icy expression. It's head was covered with its hands, as though she were about to beat it through the glass. Natasha had come over from the Soviets and was a trained interrogator, which is what they called professional torturers over there. It was a part of her skill set S.H.I.E.L.D. claimed they didn't use, but which Steve suspected they actually used quite often.

"Natasha?" Steve asked.

She didn't answer.

"Natasha," Steve said, putting a hand on her shoulder and turning her towards him. The expression she gave him was so empty and devoid of emotion it gave him chills. As if somebody else was staring out at him through Natasha's eyes.

Natasha blinked, a confused expression coming upon her face.

"I'm … sorry," Natasha said. "I must have spaced out. It's just …" She gestured towards the Chitauri cowering at the opposite end of the cell. "I guess I have to agree with Clint."

She turned and followed the others out of the detainment room, where they animatedly continued the argument as they walked down the hall. Steve heard a 'thud' and jumped back, turning to see the creature had thrown itself into the glass. No. Not thrown. It was standing in front of him now, trembling, one hand pressed against the glass as though it were pleading with him.

"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me," Steve said. He pointed to his head. The creature didn't grasp what Steve was trying to tell it. This was a creature from an alien planet. They didn't even share the same underlying non-verbal language. For all he knew, the thing had thrown itself against the glass in a futile attempt to break through and kill him.

The creature's mouth opened and shut, the fangs giving it a menacing appearance, but its grey eyes told a different story. It was scared. Had it recognized Steve had been the one to order its life be saved and was now pleading with him to release it?

He'd probably never know.

"I'm sorry," Steve said, holding out his hands in what was a universal human gesture of 'I don't know' but probably meant something else entirely to a creature from another planet. He backed out of there, watching it, until he turned to follow the others outside the detention center, the security door clanging behind him. He pushed aside his reservations and followed the angry voices, which could probably be heard all the way to Asgard. What the All Father must think of them, these people who could never seem to get along!

He waited until they were done arguing about the other nine gazillion things Fury needed to brief them on today before pulling his nemesis aside.

"Tony … can I ask a favor?" Steve trotted after the billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist.

"I told you," Tony said, clearly annoyed. "I don't condone torture." Tony tapped on his arc reactor to accentuate his point. Pepper had filled Steve in on what had happened to Tony in Afghanistan, but even _she _didn't know the full extent of it, she claimed.

"You're singing to the choir," Steve said.

Tony grunted and resumed his walk … no … strut … down the corridors of the Triskelion. For an average-height guy, Tony Stark had a way of filling the room that Steve envied. Why hadn't _he _been born with whatever charisma Tony Stark had to attract people to him, male and female, despite his physical limitations? Although at least Tony was able to keep enough weight on him to wield his Iron Man suit and taller than Steve had once been. Even next to the slightly-short-of-average Tony Stark, the pre-serum runt Steve had once been would have been small.

Maybe if he'd had a little of whatever charisma Tony Stark had, Steve wouldn't have forgotten to ask Bernice for her telephone number? There had been wariness in Bernice's eyes when she'd mentioned she'd once been engaged to a man who'd broken up with her because he'd disapproved of her career in art. Steve sensed that if he didn't call her, Bernice would not come looking for him a second time.

It was time to pucker up and kiss Tony Stark's ass…

"So what _do _you need?" Tony asked.

"It's … um … I misplaced something," Steve said.

"You never misplace _anything_," Tony said, sarcasm coming into his voice. "Mister Perfect America. You didn't mention anything about leaving something behind in the meeting."

"I … um …" Steve stammered. "It's got nothing to do with the last mission."

Tony stopped, giving Steve an appraising stare. It wasn't the persona of the class clown Steve was dealing with now, but cold, calculating businessman who'd expanded his father's company into a multi-national corporation.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"I need a telephone number," Steve said. "One of your employees."

"Have Fury send me a requisition," Tony said, resuming his walk down the hall. "I don't let the government anywhere _near _my employees. If you want trade secrets, you're going to have to pay for them."

"It's … not … that," Steve said. "It's … personal."

Tony stopped and turned, his brow furrowed. All of a sudden it clicked. Tony burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Steve asked.

"I owe Pepper one pair of Louboutins," Tony said.

Steve cocked his head to one side, puzzled. "What are Louboutins?"

Tony laughed harder.

"Send me a requisition."

"But … it's just a phone number!" Steve said, anger rising in his blood.

If Tony didn't give him that phone number, he'd have to stake out Stark Industries. Not that he _minded _surprising Bernice as she came out of work, but he wasn't sure which building she worked in. The Stark Industries complex encompassed dozens of separate buildings spanning several city blocks all tied together by an underground network of basements. All he knew was that Bernice worked 'in the basement.' The one time Steve had been down there to speak to Doctor Nyi, he had walked _into _the basement via Stark Tower and been escorted _out _of there several blocks away. It wasn't the stakeout Steve wished to avoid, but the fear that in the days or weeks it took to track her down, she would be so angry when he finally _did _track her down that her that she would simply hang up and refuse to speak to him.

"Don't get your little red-white-and-blue tights all knit up in a dental floss wedgie," Tony laughed, slapping him upon the back. "I handed over supervision of those kinds of details things to Pepper when I asked her to be my CEO. I'll have to ask _her _to divulge that information."

Somehow Steve doubted that was _all _there was to the story.

"When?"

"Just give me a couple of days," Tony said. He gave Steve a conspiratorial grin. "Don't worry. We'll have that pretty little brunette eating out of your hand in no time."

Steve shut his mouth before he said something stupid. Like the _last _thing he wanted was to have Bernice eating out of his hand. That would be unsanitary! Why would he wish to demean a female by forcing her to eat out of his hand? If there was going to be any eating involved, it would be over a candlelit dinner at a tasteful restaurant, not whatever vulgar mating ritual the former playboy referred to now!

Whistling a tune as he walked away, Tony burst out into the lyrics just as he turned the corner:

_Yeah I'm the first to fall,_

_And the last to know._

_Where'd you go?_

With no phone number, dissent amongst their ranks, an uneasy feeling about Natasha, and a critter they couldn't communicate with locked up in the Triskelion basement, Steve went home to knock the sand out of a half dozen punching bags.

X

_Note: So poor Steve –still- doesn't have Bernice's phone number. You didn't think I was going to make things that easy, now, did you? Guys always appreciate things more when they have to work for it._

_The song Tony was humming was: 'Heels over Head' by Boys Like Girls_

_And as for the whole thing with Natasha and the alien … you'll just have to wait and see. In fact … -I'll- have to wait and see, too. There are 3 different canons floating around the Marvel-verse about the critters and I haven't decided which version to go with yet … if at all. The Muses are beginning to whisper a fourth option._


	24. Chapter 24

_My appreciation to all the readers who keep pushing up those magical numbers. I'd especially like to thank the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Undapper Thoughts,**_ _**GhibliGirl91,**_ _**Adamantium Rose, Jelsemium, garnet86, Penny Tortoiseshell, Pati G W Black, Arrows the Wolf, blown-transistor, **__and __**nahrebbs.**_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 24

"If a Middle Eastern terrorist flings a soccer ball containing a grenade into the Stark Industries cafeteria at lunchtime," Bernice read aloud. "And you were to kick it, where it would land and how far away you need to get to avoid getting fragged by exploding green Jello salad?"

"Who dreams up these examples?" Jacquie asked.

"Tony Stark himself, it's rumored," Bernice said with a sigh as she plugged the numbers which had been noted on the diagram into a Pythagorean theorem and began to proof her answer.

"If I wanted to do math," Jacquie laughed, "I wouldn't have gone to art school!"

Bernice stared at the stack of 'homework' and squelched the urge to say 'me either.'

After the second time Mr. Stark had summonsed her to doodle flights of fancy on a smart pad while he worked, he'd drilled her on how she could accurately recreate scale drawings without understanding the mathematics which underlay it. All her life Bernice had been able to bamboozle, charm, and otherwise dodge learning the tedious subject, relying on her ability to instinctively just _know _what something was supposed to look like to avoid doing the actual work of _proving_ how her mind had leaped to those conclusions. Tony Stark, however, was too good at what he did to let her get away with it. He'd declared her paltry mathematics abilities to be 'utter and complete crap' and promptly sent her to the Mathematics for Dummies class he'd set up for any employee caught exhibiting deficits in the subject matter.

She was in good company there, with everyone from the janitor from inner Mongolia, Tony considering mathematics a more valuable language for the man to learn than to improve his faltering English, to the brand-new 'Director of Interplanetary Marketing' Pepper had just hired to explore selling Stark Industries products to alien cultures … if and when they found any that were friendly.

At least the class was more interesting than the boring formulae she'd been forced to drill in high school, with real-life weapons demonstrations and hands-on learning to back up their knowledge. Tony had a saying … _'math sticks better when you get to blow shit up.'_ Bernice thought of the 'salad shooter' they'd built out of PVC and ignition elements from an old gas grill, one of the more enjoyable lunchtimes she'd spent shooting cucumbers, heads of lettuce, and eggplants at a concrete wall in one of the shooting ranges in the basement. Next week, they were supposed build a working trebuchet. Mr. Stark, to her surprise, extended his belief that life should be _fun _to include his employees.

"Maybe it's time you swallowed your pride and called Mike," Jacquie said. "He keeps calling me, begging me to talk some sense into you."

"I don't want anything to do with him," Bernice said. "I thought you said he was an ass."

"He _is _an ass," Jacquie said, giving her a Machiavellian grin. "But he's an ass who's damned good in mathematics."

"Forget it," Bernice said. "If there's one thing I've learned from listening to Tony Stark, it's just how cutthroat the world really is."

"What does that have to do with Mike?" Jacquie said. "He said he was sorry. How much sorrier do you want him to be?"

Jacquie gestured towards a bouquet of roses which had arrived three days ago. Bernice had initially hoped they were from Steve Rogers, her heart dropping when she read the card signed 'Mike.' Steve had said he would call, but after a week with no telephone call, she was beginning to lose hope. She was resigned to another Saturday night spent with her three favorite people. Me. Myself. And I.

"It's not about how sorry Mike is," Bernice said, doodling a cartoon of a soccer ball flying into the Stark Industries salad bar and blowing Jello all over her coworkers. She added Doctor Nyi scooping a spoonful of the quivering mess off the bald head of one of her coworkers and eating it. Engineers viewed weapons demonstrations as a fun way to prove their egg-headed theories, something Tony Stark reminded them was not the case once their weapons left the laboratory for the real world.

"What more do you want him to say?" Jacquie said. "He got cold feet. Reality dope-slapped him. Now he's begging for forgiveness. At least return his phone calls so he stops calling _me _for information about what you've been up to."

"The only reason he's calling is because his law firm is looking for an _in _to getinto Stark Industries good graces," Bernice said with a snort of disgust.

"_He _doesn't know you've been working directly with Tony Stark," Jacquie said. "I mean … who would have figured?"

Bernice gave her best friend an appraising stare that communicated 'cut the bullshit.' Jacquie had been on her case for weeks now to give Mike the time of day.

"Okay," Jacquie confessed. "Maybe I _mentioned _it the last time I ran into him. He _does _work for the law firm who represents our architectural design firm. But the only reason I told him was because he asked."

Bernice gave Jacquie the 'evil eyebrow.' A look she had inherited from her grandmother that communicated she found an excuse, such as 'those aren't my fingerprints in the frosting of that cake,' to be lacking. Jacquie gave Bernice her most innocent, Japanese anime wide-eyed look.

"Well you were so down in the dumps after your grandmother died," Jacquie said, "that when Mike called to ask how you were doing, I figured he would cheer you up. After making him properly grovel about my beautiful wickedness, of course." Jacquie's colorful red-and-black striped hair gave her grin the appearance of a tiger about to eat somebody for lunch.

Bernice's eyes trailed over to the partially completed oil painting she was bringing to life. Steve Rogers, balanced upside-down on a pair of still rings, his expression one of utter peace even as his muscles bulged with the strain of holding the pose. It was still little more than an outline with only the faintest coloring, but she could already tell the portrait was going to be a masterpiece.

"The guy saved New York and probably the world," Jacquie said, her eyes following Bernice's to the picture. "He isn't going to call. At least Mike is genuinely interested in salvaging your relationship."

"I thought you hated him," Bernice said.

"That was because he dumped you and you were crying all the time," Jacquie said. "He's doing really good at his new job. They promoted him, you know?"

"Who cares."

"At least talk to him," Jacquie said. She pointed towards the portrait of Steve. "Bernice … I'm worried about you. You've drawn dozens of pictures of this guy and you've talked to him like, what once? A guy like that can have any girl he wants."

"He's not like that," Bernice said.

"I just don't want to see you get your heart broken," Jacquie said.

"_Mike _broke my heart," Bernice said. "Which you seem to be conveniently forgetting right now."

"He's really sorry," Jacquie said. "You guys were together for more than three years."

"And he threw it all away the moment something better came along," Bernice snorted.

"Hey … you know I wouldn't be giving Mike the time of day unless he convinced me his interest was _real,_" Jacquie said. "I made some inquiries to make sure he's not just doing that thing guys do when they look up an old flame because they're between pieces of tail. You _know _I've got your back, girl!"

_That _made Bernice smile. Before she'd met Mike, some guy she'd met at a party had called to set up a date, then never showed up at the restaurant he'd arranged to meet her at. Bernice had nursed her soda for nearly two hours, only leaving after she'd run out of money for a fourth soda. Jacquie had gotten back at the jerk on her behalf by sticking a dead fish under the passenger seat of the guys car.

"At least _talk _to him," Jacquie said, her arms crossed in front of her chest. "I'm not going to screen your phone calls any longer. If he shows up, I'm telling him you're home."

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Jacquie ran for the buzzer, peeking at the tiny camera before hitting the 'enter' button.

"Some hot guy is here to see you," Jacquie called, giving her a grin. "I'm going to get the hell out of here so you don't have an audience."

Jacquie grabbed her purse and scooted out the door, words exchanged in the hallway with whoever was on their way upfrom the street below. Butterflies danced in Bernice's stomach, hoping against hope it was _him._ She opened the door before he even knocked, her face dropping when she saw it was who she suspected it would be instead of who she _wanted _it to be.

"Mike."

"Hey, baby," Mike said nervously. He held out a bouquet of flowers. Wildflowers. A bouquet identical to the first bouquet he had ever given her. Tall, dark, and handsome, if she'd ever had a type before she'd met Steve Rogers, Mike was it.

"Thanks."

She said it with as little enthusiasm as she could muster. She took the flowers and walked into the tiny kitchenette, not inviting him in even though he followed her as though he belonged there. At one time, he _had _belonged there. They'd lived together here for three years before he'd suddenly moved out, leaving her scrambling to find a roommate mid-semester because she couldn't afford the rent on her own. She'd been lucky Jacquie had been looking for an excuse to bail from the dormitory.

"I love what you've done with the place," Mike said.

Bernice shrugged. Normally she would plunk flowers into the nearest vase and wait until her guests left to artfully arrange them. Instead, she filled the sink with cold water, trimming each stalk and arranging it as Mike stalked through the apartment, examining what she'd done to eradicate his presence from what had started out as _his _apartment.

He paused in front of the painting.

"Who's this?"

"A friend."

"Since when did you take up the study of gymnasts," Mike asked, a hint of jealousy in his voice.

"Pankration," Bernice said. "It's an ancient Olympic sport that combines wrestling, gymnastics and martial arts. Alexander the Great used it to train his armies."

"So now you're chasing after some meathead body builder?" Mike asked, his tone of voice taunting.

Bernice shrugged. The flowers now safely in their new home, she had no excuse to avoid talking to him. She walked over to the tiny table with her 'assignment' spread over it and sat down, picking up her pencil to signal 'I'm busy.'

"Jacquie said you needed help," Mike said, his tone conciliatory. "I was always better at this kind of stuff than you."

Bernice jutted her chin in the air, her eyes meeting his milk-chocolate brown ones. Eyes she had drawn a thousand times, expressing every emotion from laughter, to curiosity, to the passion they had once been filled with after making love to her. Bernice searched within her own heart for the emotion she had once channeled when drawing those eyes and found none. Not even hurt over Mike's betrayal. Only indifference.

"Mr. Stark says I need to learn to do it myself," Bernice said, what she suspected was Mike's _real _reason for suddenly being interested in her once again.

"You shouldn't _have _to debase your art drawing mundane things," Mike said. He pointed to a painting of an enormous dragon bowing before a maiden. A maiden which looked suspiciously like Bernice as she'd had nobody but herself to use as a body model. "Jacquie said they have you drawing engineering specifications for weapons."

"That's classified," Bernice said.

She had heard this speech before. Right up until the point he'd changed his tune and said her talent had no practical value. Mike's world was broken down into billable hours. Although everything at Stark Industries had to justify its existence, some work, such as hers, was recognized as having non-monetary value such as 'building good will,' 'fostering creativity' or 'making sure rising sea levels don't swallow Stark Tower.' As Pepper had said the day she'd hired her, if she wanted to be a part of Stark Industries, she had to do something she felt passionate about. Bernice was no engineer, but she _loved _giving shape to the wild ideas that spewed forth from Tony Stark's and the other engineer's heads so they could bring the most worthy of them to life.

Mike grimaced. Once upon a time, it had been _him _saying 'that's privileged information' whenever she'd tried to engage him in conversation about his new job. The one he had dumped her for … along with whichever beautiful female lawyer had sparked his interest.

"Let me support your work," Mike said. He pointed to the picture of the lady and the dragon mounted on her wall. "If you put in a good word with Mr. Stark, Wolfram and Hart will hire you to design their entire penthouse suite. Like Jacquie is doing for Stark Towers. Only they'll put you in charge of aesthetics. Not just give you a couple of bathrooms and a back hallway to design."

"I have a job," Bernice said. A hurt expression crossed Mike's face. Just because he'd treated her badly didn't justify her acting rudely in return. "But thank you for thinking of me. I appreciate it."

They stood there, two strangers. Bernice had changed so much since Mike had dumped her that she no longer even knew _herself. _She didn't recognize the more assertive woman she was turning into, but she was growing fond of her.

Mike's eyes trailed back to the painting of Steve, suspended mid-air in a pose only the fittest of the fit could ever hope to achieve.

"When you're done making an ass out of yourself with the mystery man," Mike said, his voice tinged with jealousy. "Give me a call."

He stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

Bernice sat in front of her design for a trebuchet, the equations for motion and trajectory blurred from tears. How many times had she dreamed of Mike showing up at her door begging to get back together? But whether or not Steve ever called, and she was beginning to think he would _not _call_, _she _liked _the independent young woman who was emerging from the ashes of the old Bernice. The last thing she wanted was to crawl back into some comfortable old shell just because it was easy.

She walked over to the unfinished painting, the scent of thinner signaling it was a work in progress.

"My grandmother said they created your kind to be an example for the rest of us," Bernice said.

She pictured how good Steve had been with the gang kids. He allowed them access free of charge in the hope of coaxing some of the less hardened gang members into a direction _other _than a life of crime. Superheroes. Even if Steve wasn't interested in being _her _superhero, she was glad he _did _exist. She worked for Iron Man and had once shared a cup of coffee with another superhero who shared her interest in art. Who needed fantasy when reality was so much better? Picking up her brush, Bernice began to finish her masterpiece_._ A study in _realism._

_ X_

It was several hours later when Jacquie came sheepishly back into the apartment, a fancy gold-lettered envelope and a box held in front of her as though it were a talisman to ward off tongue-lashings.

"Sorry," Jacquie said, giving her a sheepish little wave. "Maybe I should just mind my business?"

"Yes," Bernice said, barely looking up from the shading she was painting to accentuate Steve's six-pack abs clearly visible beneath his sweaty wifebeater.

Jacquie was obviously aware things hadn't gone the way she'd hoped with Mike. She held out the envelope and rushed into an explanation before Bernice could chew her out.

"A courier brought this while I was on my way up."

Bernice wiped paint off her hands and took the envelope, her fingers sliding across the Stark Industries logo embossed in real gold leaf on the top left-hand corner. She'd heard of this, rumors flying through the company about which employees were important enough to attend. Doctor Nyi had been invited, but nobody else in the laboratory had received, or expected to receive, an invitation. She carefully opened the envelope and slid out the beautifully hand-calligraphed invitation.

'_Mr. Tony Stark begs the pleasure of your attendance at the birthday celebration of Miss Pepper Potts. Stark Tower Penthouse. 7:00 p.m. Tonight.'_

Bernice opened the box, her hands trembling as she moved aside the delicate tissue paper. Inside was a sleeveless, royal blue evening gown, deceptively simple in its styling. A classic Vera Wang. The blue, she noted, was the _exact _same shade of blue as the uniform Steve had worn the day he'd led the others to take down an alien invasion. Resting on top of the dress, almost as an afterthought, was a cheap little red-white-and-blue shield pin. One of the many 'superhero' memorabilia pins that had grown common after super-soldiers had taken down an alien armada.

She looked up at Jacquie, tears in her eyes. It was her best friend who voiced the emotion _for_ her.

"Squee!"

X

_Note: The fairy gawdawful-boss has just waved his magic arc reactor so Cinderella can go to the ball and hook up with her handsome prince. What could possibly go wrong?_

_I plead the Fifth on the incident involving the fish. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you…_

_Did I mention I like to LARP? You haven't lived until you've gone out into the woods dressed in renaissance costumes with a bunch of engineering geeks and built medieval war machines to lob rotten food at the opposing camp. It's the only use I've ever found for that horrid calculus class I had to take in college. It seemed reasonable for Tony to want Bernice to fill in the gaps in her knowledge so she can 'talk geek' to her weapons-developing co-workers … _

_Don't forget to leave a review on your way to the ball…_


	25. Chapter 25

_My appreciation to all the readers who keep pushing up those magical numbers. I'd especially like to thank the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Arrows the Wolf **__and __**Mystewitch**_.

_Before the ball begins, a little side trip back into the other story that's woven into this fan fiction (lest anybody forget there are aliens trying to seize control of Earth while our two protagonists awkwardly stumble over their own lack of social grace)._

_And yes … I've posted two chapters today. So if you're subscribed to this story and clicked on the first email to pop into your inbox, you may have missed a chapter. If you find yourself saying, 'what party,' go back and read the previous chapter._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 25

"What's he doing?" Steve asked.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. guard glanced at the grey-skinned alien locked in the enormous circular glass jail cell like a fish in a fishbowl.

"Who the hell knows, Sir," the guard said. "He keeps acting as though he's trying to tell us something, but even JARVIS couldn't decipher a pattern. If you ask me, it's just some dumb animal they jacked up with a control collar to make it bite. Like one of those dog collars that zaps the dog to make it do what you want it to do."

Steve recalled the smooth way the aliens had fought and ease with which they handled the alien gliders. Their repertoire of skills had appeared to be formidable, but limited. Glider-riding aliens had been unable to fight once knocked off a glider, while ground-troop aliens had faltered whenever they'd encountered an unconventional battle situation. This alien, however, had tried to save its own life, not simply dropped dead like the other Chitauri when Tony Stark had nuked the mothership.

All of the compromised Chitauri technology had self-destructed the moment the signal from the mother ship had been lost, a failsafe device to make sure their technology didn't fall into enemy hands. What the Avengers were having trouble wrapping their brains around was the fact the Chitauri had bred and trained living soldier drones to be the same way. Even without the moral implications of breeding troops who were expendable, training and housing soldiers took time and considerable resources. It wasn't as though you could just put them on a shelf and…

"Oh. Crap."

The empty room full of maintenance beds, only the six weakest potential soldiers left behind. Steve smacked himself in the forehead. Talk about thick! Although at least this time, he wasn't the _only _one who was acting clueless. Grabbing the ridiculously small cell phone they made him carry, he fumbled with the tiny buttons, his fingers too large to hit the right numbers. His phone blinked with dozens of unanswered text messages, it taking him too long to wade through them and text back answers. All of the Avengers had learned the best way to convey information to him was in person.

There was no answer. A mechanical voice came on the line and suggested he leave a message. Steve _hated _speaking into the recording equipment people took for granted these days, preferring to keep calling back until he got a real person on the other end of the line, but this was important.

"Banner," Steve spoke into the voice mail system at the other end of the phone. "We've got to get those kids back and take a look inside their brains. They might be rigged to … I don't know … self-destruct or something. Like happened to the drones we took out over New York. I think that steel ring and wires they had running into their brains were some type of failsafe device."

He stared at the tiny keypad, trying to remember which button made the conversation end. He gave up, opting to close the cell phone instead, glad they'd let him get rid of the flat pad that had no way to close it. The phone chimed, reminding him he had dozens of text messages to answer. He stuck the phone in his pocket, turning to stare once more at the alien soldier who had come up to stand in front of the glass, watching _him _as much as he was watching _it._

"I don't suppose you could just come out and _tell _me what you're trying to say?" Steve said aloud. The alien just stood there, its grey eyes watching him with curiosity. "No. I didn't think so."

A small commotion came from the entrance to the room. Another S.H.I.E.L.D. guard bringing through the creature's supper plus two additional ones to make sure the creature didn't try to escape the minute they opened the door. Steve watched with curiosity as the creature moved to the rear of the holding cell, sitting down upon the narrow bench that served as a bed, and placed its hands face-up in its lap. A position meant to convey a lack of threat. Two more guards aimed automatic rifles at the small hole next to the doorway while the guard slipped in a tray loaded with food. The Chitauri waited until the guard had closed and secured the tiny portal and the other two guards lowered their weapons before it lumbered up to get the tray, picking it up and carrying it back to the bench.

"Did you guys teach him that?" Steve asked. He had seen such behavior before in the prisoners his men had freed from the Nazi concentration camps. Those who had survived had done so by being as cooperative as possible with their Nazi prison guards, buying their lives one cooperative act at a time. It was behavior which had worked on an individual basis, the most cooperative and helpful prisoners buying one more day to live, but had been disastrous for the Jewish people as a species, their unwillingness to fight condemning millions of them to extermination.

"No," the original guard said. "He does that on his own."

The creature gave the food a wary sniff and, one by one, moved items that didn't meet with its approval to one side. It finally settled upon the applesauce, fruit juice and the water. When it was done, it got up and carefully placed the tray in front of the portal and went back to its bench.

"Is that all he eats?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," the guard said. "Though Doctor Banner thinks it may be because it can't swallow due to its throat. He's hoping it will eat more normally once its throat heals up. We're supposed to keep track of what food it eats and how much."

The creature no longer had that pleading quality. Could it sense Natasha had been a victim like the Melanesian Island children it had been holding captive? Did it even understand the notion of holding a grudge? The creature was growing thinner by the day, its paltry diet not enough to sustain its mass, but in a fair fight without Natasha's special skill set, it _should _otherwise be able to best a woman her size. The fear it had demonstrated of his co-Avenger, though understandable, was out of proportion to the visible threat Natasha presented.

"What about written communication?" Steve asked.

"We tried pencil and paper," the guard said. "It just picked them up and studied them, but didn't seem to have any idea what to do with them."

Steve noted the way the creature had come up to the glass when he had pulled out his cell phone. He did so again. The creature came up to the glass and pointed to it.

"Give me the pen and paper," Steve called. He slipped the pad of paper and pen into the portal. The creature regarded the instruments with disinterest, coming back to point to where Steve had put the cell phone in his pocket.

"Like I said," the guard said. "This thing isn't too smart. It has no idea how to write."

"Hey … you got another one of those?" Steve asked. He grabbed some loose sheets of paper and a pencil, pulling up a chair to the edge of the glass. He sat down and began to rough out a sketch of the Chitauri prisoner, capturing the outline of its form in a few broad strokes and then filling in just enough details to make the creature recognizable. He lifted up the picture to the glass so the prisoner could see it.

The Chitauri prisoner stared at the picture, then him. There was real intelligence in those eyes as it looked over at the writing materials they had given it and strolled over to retrieve them. The creature sat down cross-legged on the floor and placed the materials in front of it, like a little kid trying to finger paint for the very first time, and picked up the pencil. It took a few false tries, but after Steve showed it how to correctly hold a pencil, or at least as correctly as a man can teach a six-fingered alien to use a pencil, it painstakingly eked out what could, in the kindest possible terms, be construed as a stick figure of Steve sitting in his chair. The creature held the picture up to the glass.

"I'll be damned," the guard said. "The thing _can _communicate."

The creature pointed to the picture and then pointed to the pocket where Steve had put his cell phone.

"I don't think they use manual writing where he comes from," Steve said. "It recognized the cell phone as a way to communicate, but it didn't recognize the paper until I showed it how."

"I'm going to note that in its record," the guard said. "Doctor Banner's assistant isn't due back until first thing Monday morning."

Steve suppressed his annoyance. _Everyone _was off at another one of Tony Stark's parties. One of many the party-hearty former playboy was forever throwing in honor of this event or that. Steve had made the mistake of attending one shortly after they'd defeated the alien armada. It was a mistake Steve swore he'd never make again. Not even for Pepper, who he liked, but didn't really know well enough to go crashing her birthday party.

The phone buzzed in his pocket, signaling another text message had just been delivered. He ignored it and turned to a fresh sheet of paper, drawing a picture of the alien sitting on the floor, drawing a picture. He showed it to the alien, who grew excited and began to draw another picture. Its pencil broke. The creature stared at the pencil which no longer wrote, a puzzled expression on its face. Steve had the guard fetch a tiny manual pencil sharpener and showed the creature how to use it. A good twenty minutes later, the Chitauri finished its stick figure and showed it to him, nodding proudly at its own efforts.

Steve gave the creature a thumbs-up. The creature stared at him, stared at its own hands, and then figured out the gesture was one of approval. He did his best to replicate it.

"The alien just flipped you the bird," the guard laughed.

"No he didn't," Steve said. "He's got an extra digit. He's _trying_ to give me a thumbs up."

His phone rang this time. A real ring, not just the buzz of yet another text message coming through. Annoyed, Steve flipped it open, wondering who the hell had been texting him nonstop for the last few hours.

"Rogers."

"Don't you ever answer your phone," Tony Stark's voice came over the phone.

"I _did _just answer my phone," Steve said.

"No," Tony said. "I mean … answer your text messages. Nobody has time to actually _talk _to anyone on a phone anymore!"

"But isn't that what phones are for?" Steve asked, perplexed. "To talk?"

He noted the way the Chitauri watched him intently, even though it couldn't hear what he said. The creature appeared to understand he was speaking to somebody on the other end of the line.

"Whatever," Tony said. "Listen. Pepper's feelings are hurt you haven't answered any of her text messages."

"What text messages," Steve asked.

"The 500 text messages she's been sending you for the past three days inviting you to come to her birthday party," Tony said.

Steve glanced at the creature, wondering if it was schooled enough in human nature to recognize the expression of dread which must have come across his face at the thought of being dragged to another one of Tony Stark's parties. Steve hated parties. Everyone always put him under a microscope and asked him stupid questions he couldn't answer … like about everything which had happened in this country for the last 67 years!

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Steve said.

"Listen," Tony Stark said. "If you want that phone number, you're going to have to ask Pepper for it yourself. Nicely. Otherwise, I'm going to stop pretending my security cameras don't pick you up lurking outside the entrance to Stark Tower every day trying to catch a glimpse of your pretty lady friend and have you arrested as a stalker."

Steve held the phone away from his ear, suppressing the urge to throw it against the wall. The Chitauri had its head tilted to one side, watching his every move. He put the phone back on his ear, having no choice but to play nicely with the arrogant little pain-in-his-neck if he wanted to get that phone number.

"You're not going to make me dance again, are you?" Steve asked warily.

He remembered the one and only party he'd been foolish enough to let Stark drag him to. Stark and Thor had dragged him out into the middle of the dance floor and tried to teach him a modern dance called the Macarena. Steve had just stood there, unable to grasp why on Earth _anybody _would flap their hands all over their bodies like that and call it dancing. Thor, on the other hand, had embraced the kooky dance with his usual zeal for life.

"No dancing," Tony Stark said. "Not unless you _want _to dance."

"I'm immune to the effects of alcohol," Steve said. "Remember? So don't think you can get me drunk like you tried the last time."

"No, no, no, no," Tony laughed. "Just get your butt over here. The party starts in less than an hour."

"I have nothing to wear," Steve said.

"Pepper took the liberty of renting you a tuxedo," Tony said, his voice overly conciliatory as he avoided laughing at Steve out loud. "It will be here when _you _get here. You can get cleaned up in one of the suites below."

Steve noted the overwhelming urge to crush the phone in his hands, throw it against the wall, and scream obscenities at it at Tony Starks … brazenness! Steve wasn't prone to fits of emotionalism, but Tony Stark had a way of arousing the _worst _in him.

"Fine," Steve said, his voice flat. "What time do you want me there?"

"6:45," Tony said. "Dressed and ready to join the party at 6:45. Not showing up looking to shower and change your clothes at 6:45. I don't have time to babysit you."

"I'll be ready to endure whatever torture you have planned for me at 6:45 on the nose," Steve said.

Tony laughed.

"See you then."

Steve flipped shut the phone, _still _having no idea how to otherwise end the conversation, and stared at it. How the hell had he just gotten roped into being made a side-show at another one of Tony Stark's parties?

The Chitauri gave him a thumbs up. Or more precisely, a middle finger.

"If you'd ever met this girl," Steve told the creature who couldn't understand a word he said, "_you'd _be putting up with Tony Stark's antics, too."

Giving the creature a thumbs up back, he directed the guard to keep it supplied with plenty of writing materials and stalked out of the maximum security area to shower in the Triskelion locker room. He'd be _damned _if he was going to do it at Stark Tower, where JARVIS monitored everything that went on there and would probably brief Stark on exactly how many times he nicked himself shaving.

Flipping open his pocket watch, he stared at the picture of Peggy he'd kept there since the day she had coaxed him to go rescue the 101st Airborne and turn himself into a _real _super-soldier.

"If I didn't think she was as special as you keep telling me in those dreams you keep sending to me," Steve said, caressing the faded picture. "I wouldn't be going through all this trouble to get her phone number."

Closing the watch, he closed his eyes, gave the lid with her picture mounted on the inside of it a kiss, and slipped it back into his pocket. Just because he was taking the first tentative steps towards putting himself out there didn't mean he was ever going to forget the woman he had loved, and lost.

X X

_Note: I thought this story needed a little comic relief. All romance and drama makes for a dull story. The original Captain America comics and especially Ultimate Avengers always make fun of how awkward Steve is when it comes to dealing with women. This story is about a man who is out of his own time, so in a way, Steve would be able to relate to the alien, who comes from a culture so much more advanced than Earth that he can't understand what paper and pencil are the way Steve can master any weapon but still can't figure out how to send a text message._

_The party scene is rattling around in my head, waiting to be written down._


	26. Chapter 26

_My appreciation to all the readers who keep pushing up those magical readership numbers. I'd especially like to thank the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**AoiKuroNekoSan, Shiori92, Enchansive, NyteMayreOfJotunheim, Arrows the Wolf, garnet86, cucumbersrockursocks, Undapper Thoughts, Anonymous, tardiswing, akatsukigurl93, Adamantium Rose, Mystewitch, Katya Jade, Penny Tortoiseshell, lazarus73, blown-transistor, **__and __**Pati G W Black.**_ Whew! I hope I got everybody! I always try to answer everybody's comments.

Special thanks to _**Adamantium Rose**_, who pointed out the 'ex boyfriend' chapter began to devolve into lengthy mush. At some point I'll go back and lop 500 words or so out of it … as soon as I get this darned next chapter out of my head where it's been living since the very first chapter! Must edit own work. Must edit own work. Must edit own work so you don't write mushy crap!

And thanks to _**Katya Jade**_, who pointed out some sloppy spelling!

A bonus-prize goes to _**tardiswing, Katya Jade, **__and__** Mystewitch**_, who got the obscure reference to Wolfram and Hart. No … this isn't going to turn into a crossover fic, but for those of you who know what that means…

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 26

Things were subdued in the Stark Tower penthouse suite when he made his way up at 6:45 on the nose. A five-man band played jazz, the throaty hum of a tenor-sax adding ambiance to the room. Wait staff rushed about like ants, putting the finishing touches on the buffet. An enormous multi-tiered cake sat in the middle, similar to a wedding cake in construction, but with a red-headed Barbie at the pinnacle standing next to an action figure of Iron Man. On the layers below, action figures battled grey-skinned Chitauri. Including an action figure of _him. _Oh … great. The _real _reason Tony insisted he be here today … so he could brag he had the _real _Avengers at his beck and call.

The cake was … garish. An adolescent boy's dream, not a pretty cake with flowers as befitting a classy woman like Pepper Potts. And yet … his eyes were drawn to the red-haired Barbie with the little black stick in her upraised hands. A magic wand? Or a conductor's baton. The latter, he thought. For all Tony Stark's faults, when he had put the woman he loved in charge of running his empire, he had put her in _charge _with a capital 'C.'

"Where is everybody?" he asked a guard dressed as a butler.

"Everybody knows when a party starts at 7:00," the guard gave him a grin, "you don't show up until 8:00."

"Oh," Steve said, unaware of this strange rule of social behavior. "Tony said be here at 6:45."

"He's over there," the guard said. "By the bar."

"Figures," Steve muttered under his breath.

He paused over a subtle outline in the floor where the polished marble did not quite match. The tiles were square, but instead of ripping up and replacing each damaged tile, they'd been painstakingly cut to the exact shape of the hole the Hulk had pounded into the floor, leaving a clear outline of a humanoid form. Tony Stark wished to memorialize the exact spot where the Avengers had taken down the God of Lies. Steve suspected the only thing preventing him from drawing a white line like a crime scene photo was the good taste of Pepper Potts.

"Tony," Steve said stiffly to Tony Stark's back.

"Hey … Steve," Tony said, turning to gesture magnanimously into the room. "Thanks for coming."

"How long are you going to make me stay?" Steve asked, tugging at his bowtie.

"Until you get that phone number you came for," Tony said. He turned and hurried towards the door to greet some guests.

As a man who had come from a generation that wore a suit jacket and tie to church or just about any other function, the tuxedo felt natural. Life had been simpler in 1945, when every man owned one good suit, a handful of slacks, and a half-dozen button down shirts. If you were doing hot, sweaty work, you stripped down to your undershirt. When you were done, you showered and put on a _real _shirt to go out in public. Life had been simpler then.

Now the rules had changed. Undershirts came in different colors, with corporate logos plastered across the chest. Instead of owning one good suit, which became your trademark, wearing the same outfit to two occasions in a row was cause for ridicule. In fact, wearing the same _casual _attire was also cause for ridicule, he was finding out. At least the gang kids showed up wearing the same garishly-colored jacket, even when it was 90 degrees outside, and didn't poke fun at his closet full of identical khaki beige slacks and button-down Arrow shirts. Here in Tony Stark's world, Steve always felt out-of-place. He wondered if the attire Pepper had been kind enough to provide screamed 'rented tux.'

More guests began to pile into the room. Doctor Nyi made his way over to the buffet, as uneasy about schmoozing with the VIP's as Steve was. They made small talk, their conversation guarded as there were unauthorized ears who might be astute enough to translate obscure code words into their real meaning. Steve attempted to direct the conversation towards Bernice, but the brilliant engineer and physicist prattled on about all of the _ideas _she was helping him capture in visual form and not any information about how to contact her. Steve wondered if Tony had instructed him to not reveal Bernice's phone number the way he had reprogrammed all incoming calls to go to a voicemail that played a badly sung song about 'it's not easy being green.' Another joke, Steve was sure, although he had no idea what it meant. Without having the magical telephone extension code, Steve had been unable to reach Bernice at work.

Doctor Nyi spotted a group of scientists, awkwardly dressed in too-tight suits even Steve recognized as out of fashion. He was forgotten as the group began discussing the recent confirmation of the Higgs-Bosun particle. Steve had been smart even _before _Doctor Erskine had jacked up his IQ with the super-soldier serum, but discussion of the so-called 'god particle' was a little too much for even _his _intellect.

Pepper. Where _was _Pepper? 8:00 p.m. and there had still been no sign of the birthday girl. Steve wanted to wish her a happy birthday, get the phone number, and get the hell out of here before Tony Stark made him the butt of one of his all-too-frequent pranks. Thor strutted in wearing civilian attire, Jane perched proudly on his arm. Natasha arrived shortly after, _without _Clint, and made her way over to the group of engineers imbibing far more alcohol than was sensible and good-naturedly haggling over whose theory of physics most closely fit the unknown technologies posited by the Tesseract cube.

Nick Fury arrived, Maria Hill at his side and most definitely _not _a couple, followed by Clint leading a pretty blonde-haired woman on one arm. Clint had his arm around the woman's waist, but he kept glancing towards Natasha. Bruce Banner came in and was instantly caught up in the increasingly loud conversation the engineers were having about the practical applications of the newly confirmed god particle.

"It's show time," Tony Stark said, coming up beside him to order another drink. "I'll have two martini's. One extra dry, extra olives."

"When are you going to give me what I came here for and stop jerking me around?" Steve asked just low enough so the bartender would not overhear.

Tony took his drink and turned to face his guests, flashing his trademark grin and raising his glass. The bartender placed the second drink on the counter behind him.

"You've got to learn to loosen up, Steve," Tony said. "Go with the flow. How are you going to lead men if you can't relate to them?"

Steve swirled his brandy in his glass and then downed it in a single gulp, allowing the sting of brandy to give him time to contemplate a suitable retort.

"I drink with the regular soldiers just fine," Steve said. "It's you guys I can't make heads or tails of."

The bartender refilled Steve's glass, catching Tony's eye and making a subtle nod towards the row of empty bottles he had lined up at the table next to the bar.

"Drink is the operative word," Tony laughed. "How many of those are you going to pound down?"

"You know alcohol has no effect on me," Steve said.

"Yeah," Tony said. "But it _does _have an effect on my wallet. Sheesh! If you don't appreciate the buzz of a fine brandy, at least drink something a little less expensive. That stuff costs $800 bucks a bottle!"

Steve glanced over at the row of empty bottles. "Sorry. Wasn't keeping track. What _would _you like me to drink?"

There was a commotion near the door. The band switched tunes, bursting into a jazzy tune Steve recognized as one of Pepper's favorites. By the way Tony perked up and grabbed the second martini, the birthday girl was about to make her grand entrance.

"Pepper wanted to give _you _a present for her birthday," Tony grinned. "Her way of saying thank youfor keeping my sorry ass out of trouble. Don't screw it up."

Before Steve could figure out what Tony was talking about, his host strutted across the room and grabbed a microphone to make a speech in honor of Pepper's birthday. The birthday girl strolled in, the flowing gait of a woman at the pinnacle of her power, not even her lofty heels slowing the self-assured way she took command of the room with her entrance.

And then he saw her…

"Bernice," he whispered. It felt as though the brandy he had quaffed down earlier hit his system all at once. The quarry he'd been hunting for the last week strode in, not at all self-assured as she teetered across the floor in Pepper's wake wearing shoes far loftier than she was accustomed to wearing. Her gown was a silken cloud of royal blue, the _same _royal blue as his cummerbund and bowtie. Her black hair was swept up off her neck, her pale shoulders bare of all ornamentation. His present, he realized. Tony and Pepper had worked together to set this up…

The engineers buzzed around Bernice like bees to honey. A queen bee and her hive. Her beautiful lips turned up in a smile, a smile so much like Peggy's it made his heart hurt, but there was something else in that smile, too. A shyness Peggy had never been burdened with. The engineers demanded her attention, earning a stab of jealousy as he realized Bernice was not still single from lack of offers. Not _all _of the engineers were middle-aged, bald-headed nerds. Bernice appeared oblivious their attraction, showing off her fancy shoes the way a girl might show them off to a girlfriend. She looked up, her eyes locking with his across the room. Steve felt as though his heart were about to pound out of his chest.

Her regal glide would have been flawless had she not tripped on the hem of her gown, a retinue of adoring engineering friends there to catch her before she fell. She gave them an embarrassed smile and waved them off, oblivious to the disappointed looks she earned as she left her retainers behind. Steve shivered with a sense of déjà vu.

"Steve," Bernice said. "Pepper said she wasn't sure whether or not you'd come."

Steve glanced to his left, expecting to see his long-dead friend, Bucky Barnes, standing at his side to ask Bernice to dance.

"I almost didn't," Steve said. He noticed the hurt expression which crossed her face and realized he'd said something wrong. "I mean … I … um …"

Bernice looked back towards the engineers, several who were calling her ame. What the hell. If he was going to make an ass of himself, he might as go all the way. The worst that would happen was she would laugh at him and then never speak to him again, the way things were headed _anyways _if he didn't open his mouth and say _something _right.

"Tony said the only way he would give me your phone number was if I came to his party."

Bernice gave him a quizzical expression.

"But I _gave_ you my phone number," Bernice said. "Didn't I?"

"No," Steve said. "You didn't." He pointed to where Tony had his arm around Pepper, who towered over him in those heels by a good six inches. "And I forgot to ask you for it. Your boss decided he wasn't going to let me get through the switchboard without making me eat crow."

Bernice looked over to where Tony Stark was making a long-winded toast to Pepper's good health. She burst out laughing.

"The music on my voice mail!" Bernice laughed. "I couldn't understand why my friends kept telling me their calls were being diverted to Kermit the Frog."

"Kermit … the frog?" Steve asked.

"He's an … uh … a puppet," Bernice said, giving him that quizzical look people always gave him whenever a popular cultural reference tripped him up. "Miss Potts said you two are always butting heads."

"We … uh …" Steve said. He glanced at Tony Stark, who raised his martini in his direction and gave him a knowing grin. "Yeah … we do that a lot. My old commanding officer had a saying about what happens when you have too many generals and not enough foot soldiers."

Bernice's laugh was fluttery, like the sensation in Steve's chest. Her eyes were an echo of Peggy's, but the tiny laugh-lines highlighted a sensitivity Peggy had lacked. Steve found himself mesmerized by the way her pupils dilated wide, taking in every detail even as she made small talk.

"I couldn't understand why they invited _me_ to the party," Bernice said. "Miss Potts said Mr. Stark is trying to make a peace offering_."_

"To me?"

"She said Mr. Stark played one prank too many," Bernice said. "And now she wants him to play nicely with you."

"Prank … uh … yeah," Steve said. He decided not to enlighten Bernice about the specifics.

The music changed, not the modern songs the band had been playing earlier, but one from _his _generation. Couples shifted, the ones who had partners pulling them out to sway in a classic slow dance. Pepper glanced over Tony's shoulder as he whirled her onto the dance floor, her smile wide as she noticed they had found one another. She nodded towards the band, where the DJ was setting up to shift gears from jazz to modern music, and mouthed the words 'ask her to dance.'

Say what things he would about Tony Stark, the man sure had great taste in women…

"Would you like to … um … dance?" Steve asked, heat rising in his cheeks as he prayed he'd remember the few dance steps he'd taught himself back in 1945. If he didn't dance with her now, to music he could at least _pretend _he knew how to dance to, then he'd never be able to do it to the modern beat which was about to dominate the room.

Bernice gave him a tender smile, one gloved hand raised to take his as he led her out onto the floor. He tried not to stumble as he placed one hand around the small of her back, the other holding hers in a lead so he could swirl her into the whirling couples.

"I'm not very good at this," Steve confessed as he forced himself to make eye contact instead of staring at his own feet.

Bernice smiled through long black eyelashes, her eyes so like Peggy's, and yet not Peggy. Where the dream Peggy had always felt self-assured in his arms, almost leading _him _across the dance floor, Bernice followed his lead, accidentally stepping on his feet. Twice.

"The crowd I hang out with isn't really into ballroom dancing," Bernice said, her cheeks turning pink. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this kind of dancing, either."

They swayed to the throaty beat of the tenor-sax belting out Louis Armstrong's _Moon River._ She was tiny compared to his height, but unlike a dream, Bernice felt substantial in his arms. He pulled her closer, the way her body brushed against his igniting a pleasant tingle throughout his flesh. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted as she focused on how it _felt _to dance with him and not just how it looked. The song should have ended, but a glance in Stark's direction revealed his so-called nemesis signaling the band to give the chorus another round.

He was _so _going to owe Tony Stark one whopper of a favor, but for the first time since he'd awoken 67 years in the future no longer the biggest game in town, Steve no longer cared. It wasn't about him, anyways. It never had been.

The band began what Steve recognized as the final refrain. Oh, how he wished he had the guts to indulge the urge to bend down and kiss those full red lips and feel what it felt like to kiss a woman for _real, _not just in his dreams, but he would not do so in front of an audience. Unlike his dream of Peggy, who he had loved long before he dreamed of kissing her, Bernice was her own individual. Someone he wished to get to know better and love for _her, _if that was what this feeling fluttering in his chest really was, and not her resemblance to a ghost from his past. He pulled her into his arms, nuzzling her upswept hair and pressing his lips against her ear.

"Thank you," he whispered, a feeling of hope igniting in his chest that he had not felt in a very long time.

The music ended. The partygoers clapped. The DJ thanked the jazz band for their music and announced it was time to tear up the dance floor. A bone jarring rhythm rattled the penthouse, the walls vibrating as couples made jerky movements that made no sense as they gyrated on the dance floor. He was not quite ready to leap into this future Bernice flowed so easily in … yet. But as she looked up from the circle of his arms, a question in her eyes, he knew what his answer would be.

"You're going to have to teach me."

X

_Note: here it is … the dance scene everybody knew was coming for the last 26 chapters. I hope it was as good for YOU as it was for ME…_

_And now there's no more big blue button to hit. Now it's a box. So if you like (or don't like) something you read, by all means, please take advantage of that magical little box and tell me what you think!_


	27. Chapter 27

_My appreciation to all the readers who keep pushing up those magical readership numbers. I'd especially like to thank the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**LEPrecon, NyteMayreOfJotunheim, Guest, Escape-To-The-Stars, Kendal, Penny Tortoiseshell, Enchansive, blown-transistor, XcrazyXookamiX, Katya Jade, TheMGracie, Jelsemium, GhibliGirl91, Shiori92, Pati G W Black, silverphoenix19, RandomAvengerFan, lazarus73, Arrows the Wolf, Mystewitch, **__and __**skybird716. **_Reviews make me very happy!

Special thanks to **Jelsemium**, who pointed out some sloppy grammar. All corrected, I hope!

_And now it's time to shift back to intrigue, with a little sappy mush interspersed for those of you who would have rather stayed at the party dancing until the wee hours of dawn. Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 27

Bernice hummed a happy tune, her concept drawing of a Chitauri soldier pointing the long, staff-type pulse weapon the engineering team was taking apart looking downright friendly … other than the fact it was about to blow someone's head off.

"Somebody's got it bad," Ralph said, one of the engineers Bernice worked with.

Bernice smiled and kept right on drawing. At this point, the entire company knew why she was so happy. The usual 'who's who' photographs of _any_ company social event had been included in the Monday morning newsletter, with the expected photo of Miss Potts standing next to Mr. Stark cutting the birthday cake she'd helped him design. Further in had been pictures of company department heads schmoozing with movers and shakers, including elected officials, the mayor, corporate titans, and an African prince. But on the back page had been a picture she _hadn't _expected. Her …dancing with Steve Rogers. She now had visual proof it had _not _been her imagination how very close he had held her as they'd swayed together in a slow dance.

Then there had been the _unofficial _video clips Doctor Nyi had recorded with his camera phone. Bernice surrounded by department heads from just about every lab in the company. Bernice tripping on her fancy, high-heeled shoes, laughing as the Vice President of Arc Reactor Technology caught her. Bernice tearing up the dance floor, shoes off, with the crown prince of some small African nation. He'd even shot footage of Steve standing woodenly in the center of the pack, looking like a trapped animal as scientists and engineering geeks, lubricated by far too much alcohol, flopped around the dance floor like fishes stranded by a receding tide. It was cute, the way the man whose body could defy gravity froze like a deer in the headlights the moment the music got funky.

In typical engineering-geek style, Doctor Nyi had uploaded all of the 'blackmail photos' to his Google+ account and sent out humorous 'ransom notes' demanding a million dollars or he'd post the videos on YouTube. He swore it hadn't been _him _who'd posted the video of Steve standing like a tree trunk in the middle of a group of women shaking their booties in a country western line dance Bernice had tried to teach him called the Badonkadonk. After _that _disaster … and the roars of laughter from Mr. Stark and the one they called Thor, Bernice had let the poor bastard off the hook and only dragged him out for the slow dances. Steve hadn't been _kidding _when he'd said he didn't know how to dance! But he had sure seemed to enjoy watching _her _do it…

"Bernice…" Huojin called in lilting English, another co-worker. "Earth to Bernice…"

"Hmmm?" Bernice asked, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.

"He's _supposed_ to look scary," Huojin said, pointing to the weapon she'd sketched in preparation for disassembly.

"_He's _not supposed to be anything," Ralph corrected. "She's supposed to be drawing the weapon. Not the alien."

"She's the only one who can figure out how the aliens hold the weapons when they use them," Huojin said. "Unlike _you._ You thought it was a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"How do we _know _this ishow they hold the darned thing?" Ralph asked.

The two engineers turned to Bernice. She was getting used to having her ideas challenged and no longer took offense. Lifting her electronic pen from her smart pad, she reached over to hit a button on her laptop and brought up a blurry still-shot of a Chitauri soldier wielding the weapon like a machine gun.

"They're taller and more muscular than we are," Bernice said. "They use it like that big machine gun Private Vasquez uses in the movie Aliens. Only it's longer. So part of it sticks out the back."

Bernice did her best tough-girl pose, pretending she was aiming the weapon at Ralph, and quoted a line from the movie.

"You always were an asshole, Gorman."

Ralph and Huojin cracked up laughing.

"She's right," Huojin said, giving her a high-five. "Admit it."

"Suck up," Ralph said.

Bernice smiled and continued drawing, the pieces getting smaller and smaller as they pulled the weapon apart. Doctor Nyi came in and cracked the whip. He appeared to have recovered from the hangover he must have been nursing yesterday morning and warned them the powers-that-be were breathing down their necks, desperate to get their hands on a working weapon. The engineers finished breaking it down, running the pieces through the laser scanner to document the exact specifications of all the tiny parts before turning their attention to the pieces that had been hopelessly damaged.

"Bernice," Doctor Nyi called several hours later. "Could you please come into my office?"

Doctor Nyi had a serious expression on his face. Bernice swallowed. Was she in trouble for something she had done at the party? The tail-end of the night was a wee bit blurry, her only recollection being how strong Steve's strong arms had been as he had guided her down to her taxi, making sure he got her phone number so he wouldn't get sent to Kermit the Frog's voicemail anymore. For a moment she'd thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he'd opened the taxi door, reminded her to buckle up, and thanked her for teaching him the steps to the Badonkadonk. A dance he never _did _end up learning.

"Mr. Stark has received authorization to increase your security clearance," Doctor Nyi said, his expression serious. "Do you know what that means?"

"Yes," Bernice said. They'd run her through a grueling series of background checks and oral interviews the first few weeks they'd hired her, including a lie detector test, but top secret security clearances usually didn't happen very quickly. She'd been fast-tracked to 'limited secret' on certain weapons projects because they needed her ability to conceptualize how aliens used the weapons they were retro-engineering, but it was by no means a blanket clearance. There were many things she still didn't have access to.

Like Steve…

Was _that _what this was all about? Of _course _that was what this was all about. He was the reason she had this job in the first place, and also why Mr. Stark was taking a personal interest in mentoring her. What was it Miss Potts had warned when she'd pulled her aside? Don't let yourself become a pawn in a tug of war between titans. Bernice's sharp artist eyes had recognized the other super-soldiers even though they'd been wearing civilian clothing. Everyone but the big green man, who hadn't looked like the party going type by what scant video footage she'd seen of him.

"Congratulations," Doctor Nyi said. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You're going to be treated as a full-fledged member of the team from now on. Full security access. What we know, you will know."

Bernice felt like she was about to wish she _didn't _know. What was it her grandmother had always said? Be thankful you've never had to see the things _she _had seen? Bernice was beginning to realize that ignorance _was _bliss. The eggheads who worked for Mr. Stark liked to stay in the lab and shield themselves from reality because if they _did _think about what they did for work, it would probably drive them insane.

Doctor Nyi summonsed the rest of the engineers into a conference room, clearing the lab of any technician or guard who didn't have top secret security clearance. A buzz of anticipation went through the team, the other engineers speculating about what could be so important to waylay their study of the staff weapon. A middle-aged, brown haired man walked into the room, nerdy, and yet attractive in his grey tweed jacket.

"Some of you already know Doctor Banner?" Doctor Nyi said. "For those of you who don't, he's the government's chief scientist on the study of the genetic manipulation of DNA using gamma rays."

An impressed buzz went through the room, whispers going through the three dozen engineers who had been summoned to attend this briefing. Steve had introduced her to Doctor Banner at the party. The good doctor had asked her for a dance, lasting three hip-hop tunes before announcing his lungs were going to burst out of his ribcage if he kept trying to keep up. Doctor Banner was nearly old enough to be her father, but she'd found him quite charming … and an excellent dancer. Unlike Steve, whose face took on an expression of horror when the one called Thor had come over to drag him out to do the Macarena.

When she'd asked Doctor Banner if that had really been _him _she'd seen in one of the photographs of the battle for New York, sitting on a motorcycle moments before the big green man had arrived, the doctor had praised her sharp eyes and said, 'that's classified.' Well … it appeared that information wasn't going to be classified anymore. Maybe. Contrary to popular belief, landing a top-secret security clearance _didn't _get you access to any old top-secret information which sparked your interest. You still had to have a need to know in order to get access to know it.

"Thank you for agreeing to participate in this project," Doctor Banner said, his brown eyes having a serious, guarded expression they had not possessed at the party. "As you are all aware, Earth was invaded by a race of aliens called the Chitauri. They were defeated when Mr. Stark took out the mother ship."

The engineers all nodded. As did Bernice. Their laboratory had been doing nothing _but _taking apart and retro-engineering the fragments of the alien technology which had survived the Chitauri self-destruct protocols when the armada had been defeated.

"Doctor Banner has some patients the aliens tried to hurt," Doctor Nyi said. "Children. There was some kind of ring bolted into their heads. He'd like us to examine the data to see if there's an engineering explanation for what the aliens were doing to them."

The giddy, happy feeling was evaporating fast in light of the serious expression on the two doctors' faces.

"The kids … are they ….?" Several engineers started to ask. Bernice didn't want to hear them say the dreaded word. Dead.

"No, no," Doctor Banner said. "They're okay now. We think. There's just some concern because the aliens dropped dead when Mr. Stark blew up the mother ship and we haven't been able to figure out why. There's no biological explanation for it. It has been brought to our attention there may be a technological explanation."

Doctor Nyi dimmed the lights. They all stared at the large, flat screen video while Doctor Banner punched in a series of passcodes and waited for the images to load.

"I warn you these pictures are rather intense," Doctor Banner added, his expression grim.

The video was poorly lit and grainy. The inside of a dark room … no … a cave. Angry voices, one she recognized even though she couldn't see him. Steve. Beds. A child. In a bed. Six of them. Black children with steel rings around their heads. Wires stuck into the rings. Chills went down Bernice's spine as she realized she was catching a glimpse into one of Steve's top secret missions. More shouting. A quick flash of Steve. The camera panned the room. Expletives. Doctor Banner speaking into the camera. Medical gibberish Bernice didn't understand. A close up shot of the wires going into the kids skulls.

Bernice winced. Gruesome was an apt description. The other engineers murmured in a low, angry buzz. These were children the Chitauri had victimized.

"Here's a later video," Doctor Banner said.

One of the kids in a well-lit hospital room. An operating room? The steel ring around his head. Bernice squirmed as a team of surgeons painstakingly sawed through bolts holding the crown in place and lifted it just enough to pull the wires that had been drilled into the kid's brain out one at a time. Doctor Banner was there, but he took a back seat to a specialist. A neurosurgeon? Bernice felt sick.

The screen turned black. Doctor Banner turned the floor back to Doctor Nyi.

"That's all we've got," Doctor Nyi said. "The doctors thought the wires were to monitor the kid's brains, but I don't agree. I have my _own _theory. An _engineering _theory. Mr. Stark is giving this department a chance to test out my theory."

"What are we looking for?" Ralph asked.

"The soldiers dropped dead when Tony Stark blew up the mother ship," Doctor Banner said. "One minute they were alive. The next they weren't. We performed autopsies, but except for the ones who were killed in battle, there is no medical explanation for what killed them."

"I'm no doctor," Doctor Nyi added, "but I'm one of the few people on this planet besides Mr. Stark who's ever been inside the central processing unit of the artificial intelligence you know as JARVIS." Doctor Nyi flipped the video screen back to the horrible graphic image of the neurosurgeons cutting into the kids head and pulling out the wires.

"_That _looks familiar to me," Doctor Nyi said, pointing to the image.

Bernice nodded agreement along with the other engineers even though she didn't understand. She was a concept artist. Not an engineer. She was in way over her head.

"I think they were trying to turn those kids into robots," Doctor Nyi said. "I'm willing to stake my reputation on it."

The engineers brainstormed about everything from artificial intelligence, to cyborgs, to Isaac Asimov's positronic brains, which everybody knew didn't yet exist. Bernice sat there like a bump on a log, nine-tenths of the conversation flying right over her head. She waited until the engineers had cleared the room, leaving her alone with Doctor Nyi and Doctor Banner.

"Wh-What do you want _me_ to do?" Bernice swallowed.

Doctor Banner regarded her with a serious expression, as though he were sizing her up. Not impressed, no doubt, because now everyone knew, thanks to the images plastered all over the company newsletter and Doctor Nyi's Google+ account, that the only reason she'd even been included in this project was because Mr. Stark wanted to one-up the person this S.H.I.E.L.D. organization kept choosing to lead their missions instead of _him._

"I've been told you have a gift for seeing alien technology and visualizing how it was used for the people it was created for," Doctor Banner said. "This technology is so far beyond anything we're familiar with that even Tony Stark is having difficulty figuring out how things work. Our own preconceptions of how things _should _work are working against us. We were hoping your gift for spotting the obvious might help us point out something we missed."

It _sounded _like a reasonable explanation. By the serious expression on their faces, it didn't _appear _they were humoring her because her boss felt like playing another prank on Steve Rogers. Somehow, though, she didn't think so. What use could an artist be amongst the best minds Earth had to offer?

Feeling sick to her stomach, Bernice made her way back to her desk, giving Ralph and Huojin a weak smile as they congratulated her on her promotion to full-fledged geek. Her grandmother had been right. Ignorance _had _been bliss. The flowers that had been brought in by security and placed on her desk while she'd been at the meeting did little to lift her spirits. Not even when she opened the card and saw it had been signed 'Steve.'

Shit. No wonder the poor guy was so serious all the time…

X

_Note: And just like that … reality intrudes. Even as Bernice is reawakening that sensitive, artistic side of Steve that was lost when they turned him into a super-soldier, the realities of Steve's life are giving Bernice a nasty taste of what it's like to have the burden of saving the world placed upon your shoulders._

_There have been little breadcrumbs throughout the last bunch of chapters with hints of drama to come. Come, tasty little boys and girls. Stick your heads into the oven and tell me if it's hot enough yet to bake my bread?_

_Be sure to leave your comments, thoughts, and critique's in the square comments box below. I love hearing from you!_


	28. Chapter 28

_My appreciation to all the readers who keep pushing up those magical readership numbers. I'd especially like to thank the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and also the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**IveHeardItBothWays1088, garnet86, KaseyJ, Undapper Thoughts, NyteMayreOfJotunheim, Shiori92, Adamantium Rose, Penny Tortoiseshell, GhibliGirl91, blown-transistor, Arrows the Wolf, imasuperhero2, Mystewitch, Guest, nahrebbs, **__and__** sssweetie.**_

_Bonus prize for __**nahrebbs, **__who can claim the distinction of being my 200__th__ reviewer._

_Special acknowledgement to __**Adamantium Rose**__ (and also __**Guest**__) who have thrown down the gauntlet and challenged me to put my non-superhero OC into the action plotline and not just sit on the sidelines as a love interest. Hmmmm… Non-superhero. Can't be a Mary Sue. Artist. Want her to –stay- a non-superhero. Have to think about that one…_

_Enough mush! It's time to get back into the action…_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 28

"You're wasting your time," Clint said. "The thing is too stupid to even speak."

Steve flashed Hawkeye a grin. Just to annoy him. It was most _uncharacteristic _behavior for him to deliberately annoy another as though he were pretending to be Tony Stark, but he wanted to get back at them for posting video footage of him dancing on an internet video site. His gym clients had ribbed him endlessly about being the only guy on the dance floor doing something they called a 'hoe down.' Tony Stark was probably the culprit, but Tony hadn't been the one holding the camera, so Steve was treating _all _of them as suspects.

Clint scowled at his uncustomary cheerfulness. Ever since Natasha had dumped his sorry rear-end, he'd been an outright curmudgeon. Not that Clint had licked his wounds for long before picking up one, no, _two _new females. If not for the hurt way Clint looked at Natasha whenever he thought nobody was looking, the sharpshooting archer's illusions about not caring might have just found their mark. Whatever had broken them apart, Clint wasn't talking. Neither was Natasha. In fact, these days Natasha wasn't talking to _anybody. _Tony Stark was in her doghouse, but then, Tony Stark was always in everybody'sdoghouse. Which was why S.H.I.E.L.D. had him officially classified as a 'consultant' and not a full-fledged Avenger.

"The path of reconciliation is the first path thou should tread before thou declarest an adversary an enemy," Thor said. "It is a lesson I must confess I learned only _after _it had cost me the heart of my brother."

Tony gave a snort of disgust.

"I say just buy them off," Tony said. "Rounds for everyone and a good Cuban cigar. If you ask me, _that's _what your new alien friend needs. A night out on the town and a hooker. You'll have him going native in no time."

"Thou would knowest, Merchant of Death," Thor grumbled. "Thou buyest influence from Midgard's petty tyrants like thee were buying children's candy."

"You didn't mind that influence when you needed to get S.H.I.E.L.D. off of Jane's back," Tony shot back.

It was an old argument. In fact, they were _all _old arguments. Petty squabbles that usually drove Steve nuts. But not today. Today … he was in an excellent mood. And with that mood came a desire to, just once, not be the sourest puss in the room. The briefing had gone well … gloom and doom for everyone. So had the latest weapons demonstration for retro-engineered Chitauri technology. It had blown up in their faces. And then there were the awesome new bruises Steve was nursing from his sparring session with Thor, the Asgardian god taking advantage of his cheerful distraction to hand him his rear end on a platter.

"What's up with Captain Happy Pants?" Tony asked Thor.

"Commander Rogers has a date with his fair Bernice," Thor said, shooting Steve a grin. "It is a … what do you call this ritual in Midgard? The night a maiden presents a seeker for her affections to her fellow maidens for their approval."

"You mean he's going to meet his girlfriends' girlfriends?" Tony asked, one Puckish eyebrow shooting up. "Ooo … scary. If the pack decides they don't like you, Miss Bernice is going to give you the heave-ho."

"Um … we're just going to an opening of an art exhibit," Steve said, a hint of self-doubt creeping into his happy mood. "I'm supposed to meet her there in two hours."

"It's their _third _date," Clint said, giving Steve a pointed look. "You know what _that _means."

"What does that mean?" Thor asked.

Clint and Tony burst out laughing.

"What?" Steve asked, his feeling of self-confidence beginning to wane.

Clint and Tony laughed at him even more.

"I fail to see the significance of this third date," Thor said, his forehead wrinkled in thought. "Is it a ritual unique to Midgard?"

Clint doubled over, his sour mood gone at whatever joke he was making. Tony snorted and slapped his hands on his thighs.

"I'm going to go talk to my new alien friend." Steve scowled. He was glad Clint was laughing, but not at his expense. Especially when he couldn't see what the joke was."Has anyone seen Natasha?"

"Agent Romanov sought to speak to Doctor Banner the last time I encountered her," Thor said. "I believe thou will findest them both in the observation room."

Steve nodded and grabbed the duffle bag of art supplies he'd scrounged up to keep the alien amused. Crayons. Magic markers. Colored pencils. And lots of paper. The creature's artwork was little more than that of a two-year-old, but through cartoon-like pictography, Steve had finally gotten it to understand they wished to know what planet it was from. The solar system it had pointed to wasn't even within the Milky Way, but it had pointed to that system no matter _how _many different star charts they used for reference, even when Thor slipped in a chart taken from Asgard. Definitely not the mark of a creature who lacked intelligence.

He resisted the urge to slam the door behind him as Tony burst into a falsetto voice, singing a tune about some virgin being touched for the very first time. Laughter burned his ears as he encountered Bruce Banner in the hall, getting a status update on the alien in passing. They'd been running tests on the creature to see if it had any sign of the wires or other biomechanical tampering they'd found in the Melanesian Island children, but so far had found none. No wires. No implants. No signs of any technology at all. Only scarring. With no healthy alien test subject to run brain scans as a baseline, for all they knew the suspicious-looking cluster of scar tissue in the same proximate area where The Other had drilled a hole into Natasha's head might be natural.

"Have you seen Natasha?" Steve asked. "Fury is looking for her."

"I left her in the observation room with the creature," Banner said. "She was trying to communicate with it."

An uneasy feeling gnawed at Steve's gut. Natasha … and the alien. Every time she walked into the room, the creature became highly agitated. Its ability to communicate, even through art, was limited, but every time Natasha left the room, it drew a crude oblong shape with numerous stick-arms coming out of it.

"Thanks," Steve said to Banner. "You know where I'll be."

Banner hurried down the hall, off to whatever experiment he had cooking in his lab. Steve did the same, headed in the opposite direction. The last thing he wanted was the creature whose trust he was beginning to earn to become too agitated to communicate via their strange little conversation of stick figure drawings. Natasha taunted the creature every chance she got. He'd seen her use such a strategy when the psychological profile of a suspect she was interrogating indicated an over-inflated ego might cause them to blurt out valuable intelligence, but doing so with a creature whose vocal cords had been partially severed didn't make any sense to him.

He found Natasha sitting cross-legged on the floor, the small portal they used to slip its food trays and art supplies into the bullet-proof, sound-proof, and just about everything-proof observation chamber open. She stared into the cage, her concentration so intense it appeared she hadn't even heard Steve come into the room. He glanced at the pad of paper and pencil Natasha had slipped into the cell. A peace offering? The alien cowered in the opposite end of the cell, hands over its head, convulsing as though it were in pain.

"Natasha?" Steve asked.

Natasha was so focused on the strange behavior of the alien that she didn't hear him come up behind her.

"Natasha?" Steve asked again. "What's wrong with him?"

He hesitated to put his hand on her shoulder, past experience teaching _all _of them that such an action would lead to being flipped onto your back with a knife at your throat when the Black Widow's survival instincts kicked in. A moan slipped out of the tiny portal, far lower than any sound a human could make. The alien fell off the bench and begin convulsing on the floor.

"Natasha?" Steve shouted. "What the hell did you do to him?"

He grabbed her shoulder and stepped back, ready to defend against the back-elbow he knew would come milliseconds before one of her weapons was pulled. Her reaction came far slower than he expected, almost dreamlike as she merely stood and turned to stare. Her eyes were devoid of expression.

"Why do you care about such worthless creatures, man out of time?" Natasha asked. "They are nothing but slaves."

A chill ran down Steve's spine. Natasha did nothing to help the poor creature who lay thrashing upon the floor, its lizard-like jaws opening and shutting like a dying fish. He could see nothing that had been done to harm it, but she was enjoying watching the creature writhe in pain.

"Code Blue! Code Blue!" Steve shouted, hitting the button on the intercom. "Banner! We have a code blue in the detention center!"

He paced in front of the door, S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol demanding two staff members be present, one with a gun pointed at the prisoner, before an observation cell was opened. His gut screamed at him that the backup person should _not _be Natasha. She'd take any excuse, even a death throe, to stick a knife into the creature's ribs. Banner was the first to arrive, ordering Steve to stand back and aim his sidearm at the creature in case the seizure was a ruse for an escape attempt. Natasha was in the cell right behind him, the creatures' seizures becoming worse the closer she got to it.

"Out!" Steve ordered Natasha. "You're making things worse!"

"But I need her…" Banner protested.

"Natasha!" Steve ordered. "I'm ordering you to get the hell out of this cell now!"

Natasha turned to him, her expression cold.

"You're not in charge," Natasha said.

A low thrum went through the room, some sort of sound coming from the creature's throat. An attempt at speech? The jaws that gnashed foam through serpentine fangs were something straight out of a nightmare, but the terror in its grey eyes as blood began to pour out of its ear-holes and eyes gave the creature an air of humanity. It reached for Steve, giving him the middle finger Steve understood was a gesture of camaraderie. The throes became deeper as the creature grabbed its head as though it were about to explode.

"I said OUT!" Steve shouted.

He had no idea what instinct caused him to value the life of a creature of nightmare whose species had murdered thousands of innocent humans over his own teammate, but he grabbed her, the delay in her reaction time caused by surprise he would react in such an irrational fashion buying him just enough time to overpower the lithe assassin. He shoved her out the door, slamming it shut so she couldn't get back in to do whatever she was doing to upset the creature so badly it was having seizures. Natasha shrieked, aiming a boot at his head as she swung around in a tornado kick, knives flying out of her belt as she rushed at not Steve, but the now-closed door of the cell, Banner locked inside with the creature.

"We must kill it!" Natasha screamed as Steve overpowered her, pinning her arms to her sides in a basket hold. Her head jerked back, giving him a bloody nose, but he managed not to let go of her, not even when she stomped on his foot and then kicked him in the crotch.

"What the hell's going on here?" Nick Fury shouted, coming into the room. The other Avengers came in behind him, wasting several precious seconds to assess the situation and realize the problem _wasn't _that the creature had somehow trapped Banner in the cell with it. Clint and Thor each grabbed a leg, hauling Natasha bodily out of the room while Steve dropped to the floor, clutching his gonads as he whimpered in pain.

"Ouch!" Tony Stark said, giving Steve a look of sympathy.

It took twenty minutes for Banner to stabilize the creature and announce it had _not_, as they feared for a few minutes when it stopped breathing, expired. Steve lumbered to his feet, resisting the urge to hold his private parts in his hand as he walked. Unlike when he went into battle, he hadn't been wearing armor. Natasha had landed a move any one-day women's self-defense class taught. A move he _should _have anticipated if he'd been concerned for his own safety instead of the Chitauri's.

Steve shot Fury a 'don't you dare' look and grabbed a chair, punching the button of the observation cell and bringing it inside to sit next to the creature laying on the bench, a pathetic thrumming sound coming from it that he realized must be a means of communication. It was a sound that was more _felt _than heard, so low on the scales did the creature speak.

"Sorry about that, buddy," Steve said, seeking to convey via the sound of his voice and not words the creature could not understand that Natasha's behavior was unacceptable. "I don't know _what _the hell got into her. I guess she just really hates your guts."

The creature raised a shaky six-fingered hand and gave Steve a middle finger. Steve gave him a middle finger right back. What the hell? Who the hell decided the middle finger was _wrong_, anyways? For all he knew, _humans _were the ones flipping the bird at the universe.

After the creature drifted off to sleep, the others circled around the video footage to see what the hell Natasha had done to nearly kill it.

"I don't get it," Clint said, staring at the footage from three separate security cameras. "She did nothing."

Steve stared at the video, and then stared at it again. Natasha had pulled up a chair and sat speaking to the creature. While her tone had not been friendly, she'd merely asked it if it knew what a rotten thing its buddies had done to the Melanesian Island children and asked it if it could tell her where the other missing islanders had gone. Natasha then walked over to the stack of pencils and paper, slipped some fresh sheets into the small food portal, and sat down on the floor in front of the portal the way Steve often did, asking it to do the right thing and tell her where the missing humans were. She had continued sitting there, repeating the same request over and over again, even after the creature had moved to the opposite side of the cell and begun to clutch its head.

"Agent Romanov performed no misdeed," Thor said, giving Steve an accusatory stare.

The video showed Steve come in, accuse her of having done something to harm the creature, call the code blue, and then attack her without provocation, dragging her out of the cell. Steve cringed. The video made _him _look bad. Even saying the creature was nothing but a slave was nothing the other Avengers hadn't said at one time or another. From the way things looked on the video, it appeared the only reason Natasha had fought back was because _he _had attacked _her._

"That's what you get for sneaking up on her," Clint said. "Everyone knows if you creep up on a black widow spider, you get bitten."

"I want her detained until she calms down enough not to slit Steve's throat," Fury snapped. "And then I want her released. Steve … you've got some explaining to do!"

The others left, leaving Steve alone in the observation room with the creature and Tony Stark. Steve waited for some snarky remark from the man he constantly butted heads with.

"Replay the video," Tony said. "Camera two. Right around 20:32."

"Huh?" Steve said.

"Replay the video," Tony repeated. "Fast forward it to 20:32."

Steve did as asked, pausing the frame at 20:32.

"Shoot," Steve said. "How did you even _see _that?"

The freeze frame showed Natasha glancing straight into the camera, the faintest hint of a smirk on her face as she gave the surveillance camera a knowing look and adjusted her position so it would have a flawless view of her empty hands. It was a look they both knew well. The look Black Widow always had right before she moved in for the kill…

"You're not the only one with a family of mice gnawing at your gut," Tony said. His cheek twitched, a nervous tic Steve had noticed right before the billionaire-playboy-philanthropist-genius erupted into a fit of vigilantism.

The two men stared at the video, playing and replaying it, trying to find the slightest hint Natasha had slipped something into the cell or done something to garner the reaction in the creature she had caused. They found none. No weapon. No poison. No signs of nerve agents or poison gas being released. The creature had never even approached close enough to pick up the paper Natasha had offered, going immediately to the furthest side of the cell the moment Banner had exited the room.

Steve looked at his watch. It was past 11:30 at night.

"Oh … damn!" Steve said. "Shoot! I've got to … no … _SHOOT_!" His heart dropped to the floor. Bernice. No matter _how _fast he hurried, it was too late.

Tony stared, his dark eyes intense, until it dawned on him what the problem was.

"Maybe it's time you told Bernice the truth," Tony said. "I made sure she got security clearance high enough to know the minute I realized you got it bad for the girl."

"I can't," Steve said. "Peggy's dying wish was that I don't let the government turn her granddaughter into a weapon. You _know _Fury will have that girl jacked up on the Infinity Serum the minute they find out she's got 100% eidetic memory."

"Then why did you ask me to give her a job?" Tony asked.

"I asked Pepper," Steve said. "Just some artwork. I had no idea you'd stick her in a lab drawing weapons for aliens."

Tony laughed. He pulled out his portable JARVIS, the tiny access computer designed to look like an ordinary smart phone. He wirelessly hacked in past the S.H.I.E.L.D. firewalls and uploaded an image to the screens around them, flipping through the images until he got to the one he wanted.

"_That _is why I stuck her in the weapons lab," Tony said.

Steve stared at Bernice's artwork. A picture of a soldier wearing camouflaged armor that looked like a hybrid between _his _Captain America armor and Tony Stark's Iron Man suit.

"You hired her because she drew a picture that looked like me?"

"No," Tony said. He shook his head. "Typical jarhead. Always missing the obvious." Tony hit a few buttons and expanded the image to focus on the armpit joint.

"I don't get it," Steve said. "What's the point?"

"The _point _is that Bernice drew from memory a suit no media image _except _the television images taken the day of the invasion had ever seen," Tony said. He pointed to the suit. "That suit was a prototype. Never used before or after that day. I had too many problems with it."

"Those images were plastered all over the media," Steve said. "Half the kids in New York got images of us downloaded as screensavers on their computers."

Tony pointed to the armpit joint a second time.

"That's not the armpit joint from my suit," Tony said. "That's the armpit joint from _your _suit. The suit designed by my father."

"He changed the design because I had trouble with it," Steve said, remembering the prototypes he'd worked with Howard Stark to design until he'd come up with a suit he could use. "The old design limited mobility too much for the kind of lightweight armor I needed to get in and out of stealthy situations."

"Ditto," Tony said. "The only reason that suit was on my body that day was because it was the only one I could get to when Loki showed up in my penthouse. The girl recognized my movement wasn't natural and instinctively put in a component from a different piece of armor that wouldn't interfere."

"How do you know?" Steve asked.

"I asked her about it," Tony said. "Why do you think I've been working with her so much to pick her brains?"

"To tick me off," Steve said.

"Yeah," Tony said, giving him an impish grin. "That too. But I don't hire talent and give it a security access unless it _earns _it."

"What am I supposed to tell her?" Steve asked. "I mean … about tonight? That I blew off our date because of a sick alien?"

"Tell her whatever you want," Tony said, waving his hand. "It doesn't matter to _me _so long as you don't screw up that sharp artist's eye of hers. What the hell! I was going to do it eventually to piss you off, but it might as well be tonight."

"What's tonight?" Steve said.

"The kid isn't going to sleep anyways," Tony said with a shrug. "Why the hell not? Go hang out with your big grey lizard friend and make sure he doesn't kibby and die on us. You're the only one he trusts."

Steve stared at the creature in the cage, alone. A creature out of its element in the same way that he was out of his. They were beginning to suspect the creature had been unexpectedly freed from some sort of robotic mind control, its behavior remarkably similar to the six Melanesian Island children who'd had the wires pulled out of their brains, even though they could find no sign of this technology within its physiology. It was the only explanation which made sense.

"I should go to her," Steve said, torn between his duties.

"Bernice isn't going to die tonight," Tony said. "Your little grey friend _might._ Especially if that meathead Fury doesn't wake up and smell the cobra in our midst."

"Why don't you trust Natasha?" Steve asked. "She's saved your life numerous times."

"So had Obediah Stane," Tony said, his expression dark and intense. "That man was the father my _own _father never was. And then he turned around and tried to have me killed. If it wasn't for Pepper…"

Tony looked away, but not before Steve saw his eyes glisten. He sniffed, and then wiped his nose as if some irritation was causing the symptoms.

"Don't worry about Bernice," Tony said. "She'll listen to _me. _I've got your back."

Tony Stark left, his stride having that intense air about it that it often had when he was suiting up for a mission. Steve pulled up a chair outside the alien's cage and put his head down upon his hands. How the hell had he managed to screw up his first _real _date?

X

_Note: people think of the human body as being a magical creation, but in many ways, it is nothing but a machine. The more our technology advances, the more we are learning to replace or repair broken parts with artificial ones. Valves for damaged hearts or stents to shore up weak arteries can now be artificially grown by spraying stem cells on an artificial form which dissolves and leaves only living tissue. Machines such as dialysis can assume –some- bodily functions. Heart, kidney, and liver transplants are common, but now even entire severed limbs or faces are being transplanted. _

_Even the brain, the area scientists once believed was the root of the human soul, is malleable. Electrodes drilled into a mouse's skull can be stimulated to cause deliberate motor movement. Blind patients can have electrodes inserted into their brains and hook it up to a camera to stimulate a crude dot-matrix picture of vision … or deaf patients to hear. Drugs can be given to alter the way we biochemically store memory. Even Iraq war veterans with spinal injuries are walking again or regaining use of damaged areas of their brain through a science known as 'brain plasticity.'_

_Iron Man, the man whose heart has been augmented by a machine, is a cyborg. Part human, part machine, it is his humanity which separates him from his very intelligent AI, JARVIS. It is not the –external- mechanical prosthesis of the Iron Man suit which fascinates Iron Man fans, but the –internal- change symbolized by his broken heart which makes fans want to reach out and give the former Merchant of Death who grew a conscience a hug, despite his continuing imperfections._

_But what would happen if aliens viewed our bodies for what they really were? Biological machines? What if they viewed those machines as tools which could have their hard drives wiped, reformatted and uploaded with all new information the way we upgrade our computers today? What if they could drill electrodes into our brains, the same way scientists can drill holes into a mouse's skull today and make it crawl through a maze?_

_Mary Shelly dreamed of using the newly discovered science of electricity to reanimate dead flesh as far back as 1816, but what if a modern-day Frankenstein sought to reanimate your flesh while you were still –alive?- _

_And with that disturbing thought, I will leave you to wait until the next chapter…_


	29. Chapter 29

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list, and specifically the readers who posted reviews, __**garnet86, MaliceArchangela, Pati G W Black, , Guest, Adamantium Rose, spiffymac0617, KaseyJ, Penny Tortoiseshell, blown-transistor, GhibliGirl91, Arrows the Wolf, **__and __**Shiori92.**_

_This chapter was originally planned to not happen until the end of the story, but sometimes your characters take on a life of their own and don't behave the way you –wish- they would behave. Perhaps it's because the –last- chapter featured Tony Stark and we all know the Iron Man rarely does as he's told. Or maybe it's because readers have expressed a desire to pull our heroine further into the action and that has sparked a whole –new- range of possibilities. Or maybe it's a little bit of both?_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 29

"He's an asshole," Jacquie said. "Don't tell me I didn't warn you! A guy like that can get any girl he wants."

"Steve's not like that," Bernice said, tipping her spoon upside-down and sticking it in her mouth, not even the decadence of Chunky Monkey enough to make her feel better.

"Just give me the address of this gym of his you said he owns," Jacquie said, her black eyes fierce with righteous indignation. "I'll have a whole dump truck full of dead fish delivered to his doorstep."

_That _got a hint of a smirk out of Bernice, but only for a second. First she had made excuses for his late arrival, telling all her friends it wasn't like Steve to be late and he had a very important job. Then she'd gotten angry, silently fuming as her friends had given her that knowing look and told her she deserved better. When her friends had begun to leave the exhibit and she realized he wasn't coming, she had cried. Then she'd gotten angry again, leaving three messages on Steve's voicemail, the last one telling him what an asshole he was and informing him she was going home. Then she'd thought better of it, remembering that in his line of work sometimes you have to save the world, and called back, leaving a message apologizing. And then she had cried some more. Right now, her eyes were so red-rimmed from crying that she didn't have any tears left to shed. So now it was on to every jilted girlfriend's Plan B … Ben and Jerry's.

Bernice stuck the spoon back into the pint and half-heartedly scooped out another bite. She and Ben and Jerry had developed quite the friendly little ménage au trois back when Mike had dumped her for a new job at the biggest law firm in town. Although at least _Mike _had the decency to dump her in the privacy of their apartment. Not in front of fifty of her closest friends, art students, and former professors at a digital art exhibit which featured some of her concept art for video games.

"He wouldn't just not show up like that without a reason," Bernice said, her heart screaming '_please please please please'_ but the sick feeling in her gut calling her a loser.

"What?" Jacquie said in her usual blunt style. "_What _could have been _so _important that the guy couldn't at least pick up the phone and _call _you?"

"He's ….um…" Bernice trailed off.

How could she tell her best friend why she was so willing to give Steve the benefit of the doubt without spilling classified information? Not that Jacquie knew a _lot, _but she _did _know Steve Rogers was one of the soldiers who'd saved New York. She hadn't been working for Stark Industries the first time she'd bumped into him at her grandmother's nursing home. She'd told Jacquie all about hot guy who'd shown up to speak to her grandmother instead of the geriatric they'd been expecting. After that, Grandma Peggy had given her a stern lecture about protecting people's identities so the bad guys didn't show up at their doorstep. Bernice had been evasive about the mystery man ever since, not willing to lie to Jacquie, but not volunteering what little truth she knew, either.

What if Steve _had _deliberately blown her off? It wouldn't be the first time some guy she'd been seeing suddenly broke things off. As a matter of fact, right about now was usually when that sort of thing happened, although usually it didn't happen until _after _the third date. The curse of the third date. What was it with guys, always expecting to get laid on the third date? Not that Steve…

"He's gay," Bernice said, sitting upright in her chair. All the puzzle pieces fell into place. Now that she thought about it, all the signs had been there all along. Buff guy obsessed about working out all the time. Meticulous attention to what he wore, just a little too dressy for the occasion. Obsessively neat … well … she'd never been into his personal quarters but the gym itself had been obsessively tidy. And an artist. Art had more than its fair share of queens. And in the end, it had been _her _chasing after _him_ the whole time, not the other way around.

"Has he ever tried …" Jacquie asked.

"No," Bernice said. "Not even a kiss goodnight. He didn't even hold my hand until our last date, and then he always kept a safe distance between us, as though … I don't know. He doesn't act _normal._"

Jacquie grabbed a second spoon.

"Pass over that pint," Jacquie said. "Damn. Something that nice looking goes over to the dark side, makes _me _want to snarf down some Ben and Jerry's, too. How'd you miss _that _one, girlfriend?"

"I dunno," Bernice said. "Blind lust? My 'gaydar' is usually more alert."

The door buzzer rang. The girls looked at each other, and then the clock. It was _well _after midnight.

"It's him!" Bernice said, leaping out of her chair.

"No you don't!" Jacquie said, standing in front of the door with her arms crossed, her red and black striped hair making her look like an angry tiger. "Unless that's the police come to tell you they need you to identify his body in the morgue, the only way he's getting anywhere near you is if he suitably grovels to _my _satisfaction. And that means flowers and candy and some good old-fashioned boot-licking!"

"But he…" Bernice protested.

The door buzzer rang again.

"You know The Rules," Jacquie said. She held out her hand, her pinky finger extended. "You took an oath! From now on, you're going to follow The Rules!"

The buzzer rang a third time. Bernice looked at Jacquie, and then the empty containers of Cherry Garcia, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and the nearly empty container of Chunky Monkey. After Mike had dumped her, Jacquie had showed up with this book of dating advice called The Rules. It was archaic advice your grandmother would have given you. In fact, it was dating advice her grandmother _had _given to her! Make the guy chase _you. _Make the guy wait until he's ready to marry you before you jump into bed with him. It had saved her many a broken heart when she'd gotten dumped after refusing to put out after the third date, before she was too emotionally invested in a guy who turned out to be a jerk.

Although, until tonight, Steve had seemed every bit as much of a Rules Guy as she was a Rules Girl…

"_I'll _get the door!" Jacquie said. Before Bernice could decide either way, Jacquie had bolted out into the stairwell, slamming the door behind her.

Was it him? It _had _to be him. Who _else _would it be at this hour? Should she overrule Jacquie and go downstairs? No. She looked terrible. She'd been crying her eyes out for hours and come home and put on her ugliest, most threadbare comfy pajamas. She rushed in front of the mirror, frantically trying to rub the smudged mascara that made her look like a raccoon and straighten out her hair. Oh! God! She looked absolutely awful! Don't let him come up, she prayed. Please don't let him see me like this!

The sound of footsteps came up the stairs. One set? Or two? Bernice held her breath, freezing as she waited to see if it was even him. The door swung open. Bernice stared in disbelief.

"Mr. Stark?" she stammered.

Jacquie came in behind him, her expression perplexed.

"If you don't mind, Miss Gyeong," Mr. Stark gestured to Jacquie. "I need to speak to Bernice."

Jacquie shot Bernice a 'you must tell all' look and scooted into her bedroom without protest. It appeared Tony Stark's mere presence was enough to convince her Steve must have a very good excuse. Bernice took a deep breath and tried to calm herself so she wouldn't stutter like an idiot. Why couldn't she be more self-confident like her grandmother?

Why the hell was Tony Stark _himself _coming out in the middle of the night to make excuses for …

Oh, god!

"Steve," Bernice said, her voice high-pitched and strangled. "Is he alright?"

Mr. Stark pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers as though he had a pounding headache.

"Got any of that Chunky Monkey left?" he asked.

Bernice blinked, surprised at this strange request from her bosses boss's boss.

"It's almost … um …" she stammered. "I could get you your own spoon?"

Mr. Stark snorted, a weary kind of snort that was supposed to have come out as a laugh, but he was so tired it came out more of a pathetic sigh.

"Get some sleep, kid," Mr. Stark said. "There will be a car waiting for you at 10:00 a.m. on the nose. What Steve has got to tell you, he's just going to have to tell you in person."

"What?" Bernice asked.

Mr. Stark shook his head, rubbing his eyebrows and his temples. Everybody always commented on how virile Tony Stark always appeared, but this was the first time she'd ever seen her boss exhibit the weariness she'd seen in some of the pictures snapped after the Avengers had taken down the alien armada. He looked almost as exhausted as … Steve.

"He didn't mean to miss your date," Mr. Stark said, his voice weary. "Really. He didn't. Sometimes … it takes a special kind of woman to love a superhero. I just hope you're that woman, Miss Rosenthal, 'cause if anybody needs that kind of thing right now, its Steve Rogers."

Mr. Stark picked up what was left of the Chunky Monkey and left without saying another word. Jacquie rushed out of her bedroom the moment the door clicked behind him, pumping her for information Bernice knew she could not, under all the classified information waivers she'd signed for both the government and also Stark Industries, tell her.

Was _this _what it had been like for her grandmother?

X

Bernice stared out the window, her face impassive as the Lincoln Town Car glided through the streets of Brooklyn. _He hadn't meant to miss their date. _It was the answer she'd been hoping to hear, but the weariness in Mr. Stark's voice indicated he thought she might not want to _know _whatever truth Steve Rogers needed to tell her.

The car slid through a pair of enormous stone gates which was familiar.

"Are we in the right place?" Bernice asked.

"This is the address I was given," the driver said. He was one of the many Stark Industries drivers sent to run VIP's around town. Bernice had crossed paths with the drivers, giving them a friendly smile on her way into the building each morning, but she'd never had any reason to talk to them. She didn't even know this one's name. Another anonymous cog in the enormous machinery of Stark Industries.

The car stopped at the place she'd _expected _it to stop the minute they'd passed through the gates of Green-Wood Cemetery. Her connection to Steve and all the weirdness which had come with that, including her new job, had all started with her grandmother. Bernice swallowed. What was it her grandmother had told her the day before she had died? There were secrets she was glad to be taking with her into the grave so they wouldn't ghost around, haunting people anymore. Was Steve one of those ghosts?

It was getting late in the season to be riding a motorcycle, but Steve's vintage 1938 Indian was parked at the side of the driveway, gleaming blue and whitish-grey just like the armor he wore into battle. He stood in front of her grandmother's gravestone, wearing the beige khaki's, vintage-style brown leather jacket, and button down shirt he always wore. Bernice got out of the car and thanked the driver, not sure whether to be concerned or relieved when the car slid out of the graveyard every bit as silently as it had arrived. She knew he heard her approach even though he didn't turn to see her face. She paused, waiting to hear what he had to say.

"I loved your grandmother," Steve said softly, one hand caressing the gravestone of both Bernice's grandmother and also her grandfather. "I would have asked her to marry me if I'd come back from that last mission alive."

He didn't turn, letting his words sink in even though they made no sense. Bernice opened her mouth and shut it again, sensing this was something he needed to tell her without being interrupted. Steve got tongue-tied around women whenever he tried to speak whatever was in his heart. For some reason, with her grandmother he had overcome those inhibitions.

"For two years I dreamed of kissing those lips," Steve continued, his voice almost a whisper. "Peggy wouldn't give me the time of day. Said I wasn't good enough. Not even _after _they turned me into super-soldier."

Bernice's mouth formed into a surprised 'o' even as her brain refused to acknowledge the truth her heart knew he was trying to tell her. Breadcrumbs dropped by her grandmother. The pictures. The way he dressed. His manners. Everything about him screamed 1945 except for his physical age.

"Sixty-seven years I was asleep," Steve said, his back still turned to her. "Sixty-seven years that your grandmother went on to live her life and I did not. I shouldn't be alive. But for some reason, God thought it would be funny to bring back some guy who for all intents and purposes died back in 1945."

Steve turned to her then and she saw that he had tears in his eyes.

"I just wanted to make sure that the first time I ever kissed _you,_" Steve whispered, taking a step towards her and raising one hand to touch the corner of her lips. "That it was _you _I was kissing, and not the echo of something that never existed."

Bernice stood still, unable to do anything but stare up at the beautiful, tormented face which had inhabited every waking thought since the day she had first laid eyes upon him. Pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. The archaic uniform. The ring he had thrown into the grave. The way he had diligently come out to visit her grandmother at the nursing home almost every single day. Sixty-seven years? He had been frozen in time for sixty-seven years? What would it be like, to go to sleep in one century and wake up in another, everything and everyone you had ever known gone?

She reached up to touch the hand he had over her cheek, nodding her understanding. There were no words to express her tangle of emotions as questions burst into her mind. Tears welled in her eyes as she realized what it must have been like for him, to be cast out of time like some ship adrift at sea.

He pulled her into an embrace then, so very much like the one he had pulled her into after that first dance the night of the party, the reason for his hesitation. Self-doubt waged war with the little voice in her heart that whispered tales of hope. That it wasn't _her _he wanted, but her grandmother who was dead and in the grave!

"I understand," Bernice choked out. "You … um … I'm not the one you want."

The arms that held her trembled, no longer strong. He tightened the embrace he held her in, his breath a gasp of pain as he kissed the top of her hair.

"I wanted to look you up after your grandmother died," Steve said, tugging her towards a stone bench the cemetery had placed under a little tree next to her grandmother's grave. "I really did. But I didn't think it was fair to explore a _new _relationship until I was certain I was over the _old _one. The one which had never been."

He pulled her down to sit next to him, his strong arms wrapping around her as he pulled her into his side. They sat there, only the late-autumn chit-chit-chit of a chickadee breaking the silence as they leaned into each other's warmth and stared at the gravestone of the woman who had brought them together.

"I think she loved you," Bernice said at last.

"She did," Steve said. He tilted her chin up with his thumb and forefinger so that he could look into her eyes. "But she loved your grandfather even more. And for the first time, I'm okay with that."

His lips brushed hers, the softest whisper of a kiss so soft she wasn't sure it had even happened. He pulled her back into his side, wrapping his arms around her as he rested his chin on the top of her head. Bernice waited, the faint sound of his beating heart a clock ticking away the seconds. Waited to hear the rest of what he had to say. Had she not spent the last six months piecing together alien technology, what he was telling her was so bizarre she probably would have run screaming.

"She made me promise I would shield you from the ugly reality of the things we both had seen," Steve said. He kissed the top of her hair a second time, the kiss lingering and thoughtful, neither passion nor pity. It was the comfortable embrace somebody gives someone they have known a very long time. "I don't think I can do that anymore."

He sighed, but it was not the sad sigh of earlier, but one of resignation. Bernice sensed he was not finished saying what he had come here to say. Not to _her. _But to her dead grandmother. He touched her hair, one finger pushing back a strand which had fallen across her face so he could look into her eyes.

"I'm not used to breaking promises," Steve said at last. "I just thought it fitting that when I broke my promise to Peggy to not to get you tangled up in all of this, that I should do it here."

Tugging her to her feet, his hand in hers, he led her towards the motorcycle which sat waiting. A relic. Like _he _was a relic of a time long dead and gone. He handed her a helmet, having come prepared with two, and helped her onto the motorcycle, his broad back stepping into place in front of her to kick it off its stand.

"Steve?" Bernice asked. She swallowed. "How come you didn't come?"

She paused, waiting for the inevitable words she knew he was legally obligated to say. _That's classified._ Steve didn't turn to speak to her, but took one of the hands she had tentatively wrapped around his waist and brought it up to his lips, opening her fingers to lay a kiss upon her palm, and then pressing it over his heart.

"My alien friend got sick," Steve said.

Kicking the Indian to life with a single kick of his heel, he guided the motorcycle out of the cemetery, through the traffic, and onto the freeway beyond. Bernice melded into his warm back, relishing the feel of his abdominal muscles flexing beneath her fingers as they leaned together into the curves, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. She didn't know where he was taking her, and she didn't care. All that mattered was that it was with _him._

X

_Note: 'The Rules' is a book written by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. The seemingly archaic rules are some of the best dating advice you will ever get. While some people accuse 'Rules Girls' of being manipulative, nothing could be further than the truth. Rules Girls learn to spot troublesome behavior and avoid those guys. If you're a gal, read The Rules. Steve is definitely a 'Rules Guy.'_

_Be sure to drop me your thoughts in the comments box below. Accolades or criticism … one feeds my ego … the other makes me a better writer._


	30. Chapter 30

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, __**Leoness, Arrows the Wolf, Guest, Undapper Thoughts, GhibliGirl91, lazarus73, Penny Tortoiseshell, Katya Jade, AoiKuroNekoSan, Pati G W Black, blown-transistor, WordsLikeStardust, Mystewitch, **__and__** LEPrecon.**_

_A big, fat LOL aimed at __**Pati G W Black, **__who has now labeled the Steve-Bernice pairing as STERNICE. Or BERSTEVE. I dunno … STERNICE flows off the tongue better, don't you think?_

_Special thanks to __**Mystewitch**__, who provided feedback about the big reveal. I added a few non-verbal cues to enhance what was being said between the lines of the sparse explanation of why Steve couldn't come._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 30

"Are you cold?" Steve asked, brushing a long black hair out of her mouth whipped there by the late November wind.

"Not with you here," Bernice said, leaning back into his warmth. She sank into the shelter of his arms, pulling one arm across her neck to cover where she'd foolishly forgotten to wear a scarf. Or perhaps _not _so foolish. Ever since he'd seen Bernice with her hair upswept off of her creamy white neck at the party, accentuated by her raven black hair, he'd developed a fetish for kissing her there any excuse he got. The little minx knew it and enjoyed taunting him, tempting him to nibble on the delicious morsel at odd times, such as in front of his gym clients or while waiting in line at the movie theatre.

Steve pulled her closer and stared across New York harbor from the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Officially it was after hours and the Statue was closed, but Tony Stark, the Tin Man who'd suddenly grown a heart, had pulled a few strings to get the caretaker to give them access.

"I still don't understand why Mr. Stark would do this for us?" Bernice asked.

"Pure Machiavellian despotism," Steve said, enjoying the feel of cuddling with a woman who wanted to cuddle with in return. There had been _lots_ of cuddling and kissing since the day he'd told her who he really was. But Bernice seemed to sense he wished to take things slow.

It was a heady sensation, allowing himself to fall in love. He savored each decadent moment as though it were ambrosia. And he was enjoying it. Unlike the unrequited crushes he'd developed as a scrawny asthmatic on girls who wouldn't give him the time of day or Peggy, who'd been oblivious to his affections until the very end, his relationship with Bernice, now that she knew the truth, was easy. Easy to be with. Easy to talk to. And quick to laugh when he got tongue-tied and stuck his boot in his mouth, which he still did with distressing regularity despite how natural it felt to be with her.

"He wants to make sure I owe him lots of favors so the next time he ticks me off, he can remind me how much I owe him."

Bernice burst out laughing.

"You two," Bernice said. "You're like two old prize fighters circling each other at a match of golf. When are you two going to realize you're not in a boxing ring?"

"Meh," Steve said, nuzzling down her tantalizingly bare neck, just begging him to warm it from the biting wind with his lips. "If you think _I'm _bad, you should see him and Thor go at one another."

Bernice giggled, causing her entire body to tremble against the length of his. Steve nuzzled her neck some more, causing her to shriek with laughter. It did things to him, the feel of her body moving against his. Things that made him think of making their relationship a permanent one. But he was wary. There had been an unusual lull in alien activity. How would Bernice hold up once he started getting called out again? Even as Stark encouraged him to loosen up and have a little fun, his old adversary warned him to make sure Bernice could hold up to the reality of life with a superhero. Most women could not. Steve had given Peggy his word he would shield her granddaughter. That meant not dragging Bernice into a relationship she couldn't emotionally handle once reality intruded back into his life.

"It's pretty up here," Bernice said, the light reflecting off of the golden torch of the Statue of Liberty giving her eyes a golden-brown cast. She turned to face him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Maybe I _am_ cold after all?"

"Would you like to go inside?" Steve asked.

Bernice cuffed him offside the head for his feigned cluelessness and tugged him down for a kiss, nipping his lower lip. Steve couldn't help but moan, the warm glow he'd been stoking, trying to keep things from getting too hot too fast, shooting flames throughout his body. Bernice had started dropping hints about it being far enough past the third date to no longer be a gentleman. Clint had finally taken pity on him and dragged him aside, explaining the modern notion of the 'third date.'

Wrong thought. That made his temperature shoot up even hotter, making his entire body tingle. If he got any warmer, his thought his heart would burst with happiness. He couldn't remember any time in his life when he'd been this happy. He hoped … prayed … that this feeling would last.

"What are those lights flashing over there?" Bernice asked. She leaned forward, squinting into the inky night.

Steve's eyes scanned the harbor, automatically discarding the normal lights that twinkled both across the busy harbor. His vision settled on an anomaly on Governor's Island. No. _Not _Governor's Island. But the Triskelion portable command barge anchored just off the former Coast Guard station. The fortress had been designed to hide in plain sight, but since the alien invasion, New Yorkers liked to see proof the government had soldiers capable of taking on the new breed of bad guys. A kind of floating security blanket.

"That doesn't look like authorized activity," Steve said, every nerve fiber in his body coming alive at the small lights converging upon the location from multiple directions.

A flash of light.

The sound came a few milliseconds later. The sound of an explosion.

"That's the Triskelion!" Steve said, his arms instinctively tightening around Bernice, seeking to protect her from an explosion that was too far away to cause her any harm. "I've got to go!"

The rat-a-tat-tat of a semi-automatic weapon returning fire echoed across the harbor. Almost the same second, his cell phone rang. Bernice looked up, her eyes round and anxious in the reflected light of Lady Liberty's torch.

"Y-You'd better get that," Bernice said. Despite her stutter, she jutted out her chin.

Adrenaline surged through Steve's body, the urge which had always battled against his measured nature taking over, the instinct to fight. His first love had not been Peggy or the little girl who'd sat across the aisle from him in fifth grade, but that adrenaline rush which proceeded rushing into a fight, even back when it had meant getting his scrawny butt kicked and handed back to him. He grabbed the phone.

"Rogers," he answered, his heart accelerating, pumping the oxygen his body would need into his tissues so he could react on a hair-trigger.

"The Triskelion is under attack," Nick Fury's voice crackled. "Gliders. Don't have any more information than that."

"What's your twenty?" Steve asked.

"Agent Romanov and I are on West Street, approaching the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel," Fury said, the sound of a racing engine and horns blaring in protest audible in the background. "Stark is suiting up. Thor is out in New Mexico and Banner in the Bronx. I'm calling them next. How soon can you get there?"

Steve looked down at the small boat he'd rented to get them here this evening tied to the dock. It was nothing out of the ordinary, just a small boat with an outboard motor, but it was little more than a mile to Governor's Island across the treacherous current.

"I'll be there real quick," Steve said. "But I don't have access to my armor. Or my shield. I'm wearing civilian attire."

Damn! Damn damn damn! He had a sidearm stashed in the duffle bag full of picnic supplies stowed in the boat, but he had not come prepared to have his romantic date with Bernice turn into defending against an armed incursion. His armor was _inside _the Triskelion. As was his shield. Bernice stiffened in his arms, giving a fearful squeak as she realized he was about to go into battle without his primary weapon or armor.

"We'll meet you there," Fury said. With a beep, Fury cut off the line.

Bernice stared up at him, her eyes wide with fear.

"I've got to go, love," he said, pulling her in for a kiss. It was funny, the way adrenaline heightened his senses, made him want to override his instincts to proceed cautiously with their relationship and take her right there on the spot, finish the thing he knew both of them wanted to happen. He drank in the sensation of her lips, her scent, the way her body trembled against his, the low burn he kept militantly under control igniting in his loins.

"G-g-go," Bernice stuttered, clinging to him even though her words said otherwise.

It was the sound of a second explosion which forced him to override his reluctance to leave her. He released her, pausing to brush the ever-present strand of dark hair which forever found its way into her mouth off her cheek so he could memorize her features.

"I'll be back for you as soon as we deal with this," Steve said, prior experience as a military commander causing the words to naturally tumble out of his mouth. "The caretaker will help you get off the island if I'm not back before dawn."

Bernice nodded, tears springing to her eyes. To her credit, she did not beg him not to go. But he could see she was terrified of what he might be facing. So was he. But that had never stopped him before.

Her beautiful dark eyes haunted his thoughts as he ran down the narrow steps of Liberty's arm. Peggy's eyes. Bernice had that same look of terror he had seen in Peggy's eyes moments before he'd jumped out of the car onto the landing gear of Red Skull's warplane. It was the last memory he'd had of her until he'd found her again 67 years too late.

This time he'd make damned sure he didn't get himself killed…

X

_Note: __The following action thread is being adapted from Ultimate Avengers. However, we have a not-quite OC (Bernice) and fewer/different Avengers in the Avengers movie than in the Ultimate Avengers series, as well as my own original intrigues. Therefore, for those of you who are canon purists, I suggest you think of the next few chapters as being 'canon decorated.'_

_Governor's Island sits directly across New York Harbor from Liberty and Ellis Islands. The current from the Hudson River converging with the East River just past Manhattan makes the short passage treacherous. The Island is accessible via ferry, subway, and a bus line that passes underneath New York harbor a short distance from the Island. Passenger cars are banned from the former military outpost, which is now a national park, but official vehicles can gain access._

_ X_

_Thanks, everybody! And don't forget to leave me feedback, please! Positive or negative, it makes my writing better!_


	31. Chapter 31

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, __**GhibliGirl91, NyteMayreOfJotunheim, harleyquill, rEdRoSeSiNaUgUsT, Mystewitch, MaliceArchangela, Adamantium Rose, LEPrecon, Arrows the Wolf, Penny Tortoiseshell, WordsLikeStardust, Guest, **__and __**KimchixBurger.**_

_Special acknowledgment to __**Admantium Rose**__, who's cracking the whip saying 'enough mush … more action!' Lots of action coming up the next few chapters…_

_I'm keeping these chapters short as the rapid action of battle scenes wears on you when you try to express via the written word the zillion things which happen all at once visually._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 31

Gliders. Five … no … six of them. An alien Special Forces team? Was this the A-team? Or the B-team left outside to provide backup support while the A-team infiltrated the facility? The latter, he thought. That's what _he _would have done. He squeezed back the throttle, hoping the high-pitched whine of the outboard hadn't alerted the backup gliders. The large, triangular-shaped barge loomed in front. A glider scooted by, one of the smaller single-rider versions Stark was retro-engineering. The creature's back was turned to him. Steve pulled his sidearm and aimed at the creature's back, noting the curious lack of armor on the greyish flesh.

_Nothing but slaves…_

Shooting the creature in the back would serve no purpose but to alert his compatriots of his approach. Steve holstered the weapon, spinning the wheel of the tiny boat and frowning as the current tried to drag it downriver. On second thought, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea? The docks were on the east side of the island because the current rammed any boat that tried to approach from the west into the rocky shore. Steve fired up the engine and drove _away _from the fight, looping upriver. He waited until he felt the current drag him in the direction he wanted and aimed the boat right for the island, cutting the engine completely.

As he'd anticipated, the current carried him right into the tidal wall which ran along the entire island. It was low tide. Waiting until he felt the bump of the boat hitting the rocks, he threw out the cinder block with a rope through the middle which served as an anchor. He had no idea if it would be adequate to hold the craft once the tide began to rise, but it was a rental. Not an asset of S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd be less than pleased if he had to pay to replace it.

Another glider passed just as Steve was splashing through knee-deep water to the shore. He froze. As he'd hoped, the lower-level soldiers were slow to recognize a potential threat unless it moved towards them. Another piece of the puzzle … a picture that was beginning to make sense. As soon as the glider moved beyond him, he finished the trudge through the icy waters, grimacing as it soaked through his shoes. The first lesson any soldier learned was to always protect your feet. It was going to be one hell of an unpleasant mission.

He ran along the stone sea wall, careful to keep to the shadows as another glider passed. One skimmed the dock. There would be no getting onboard _that _way. It was November. This was really going to stink! Stripping off his favorite leather jacket and praying he'd be able to retrieve it before the rising tide carried it away, Steve slipped back into the water, careful not to draw the attention of the gliders by splashing.

The icy water hit him like a sledgehammer. Hyperventilating to keep his core temperature from dropping, he did the breast stroke to swim to the opposite side of the enormous floating fortress, keeping his head and body under water as much as possible to reduce his visual footprint. Another glider passed as his hand bumped the barnacle-ridden hull. The sound of boots pacing back and forth alerted him climbing out of the water unseen by the gliders was not his only problem. Like all things the lower-level sentries did, there appeared to be a pattern to the glider's patrol pattern and the back-and-forth pacing of the soldier on the deck above.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could predict their movement. Tick. Tick. Tick. Steve forced his heart rate to slow as he counted the rhythm. Slipping beneath the water until he was almost to the bottom of the hull, he continued the count, waiting until he estimated the sentry on the deck would have his back turned one way and the patrol glider would be at the far reach of his patrol arc, then kicked up out of the water like an orca breaching the waves. It was not much momentum, but enough to grab the lip of the deck, the purpose for all the work he did between missions on parallel bars and gymnastics rings. Suppressing a grunt of pain as shoulder muscles screamed in protest at the abuse, he swung himself up, his movement anything but graceful as he flopped onto the deck of the ship like a fish out of water.

A human?

The dark-skinned male whirled and rushed towards him, his blonde afro gleaming against ebony skin. One of the missing Melanesian Islanders? The man wore a black jumpsuit not too different from what S.H.I.E.L.D. agents wore on missions, attire designed to blend into the night. The M-16 held casually in his arms came up, aiming right for Steve's heart. A heart not protected by his usual armor.

Steve flung forward in the tornado kick taught to him by Agent Romanov, the feint making it look like he was coming in for a punch before he spun a back kick to in the intruder's midsection. The gun fired harmlessly to his left. Drat! Now the others knew he was here! Using the momentum of the spin to face forward once more, Steve gave the intruder a good old-fashioned punch in the face before he could get his bearings and shoot again. Adding a left hook and a jab, Steve finished taking him out with sucker punch straight to the side of the head. The intruder crumbled to the deck. _Just a slave… _Steve didn't have time to feel for a pulse before the glider had finished its arc and spotted him.

Rays of light shot from the glider, exploding on the deck. Steve ran, weaving erratically in an effort to evade the weapons fire. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one… Steve thanked whatever God had decided to resurrect a guy who'd noted back in 1945 the odd delay in the Chitauri reaction time.

The Triskelion had been designed to provide little cover for intruders, which meant there was little cover for _him, _either. But it _did _have weapons turrets. Steve dove towards a cannon, yelping as sparks from a Chitauri weapon ricocheted off the metal and seared through his shirt. Steve grit his teeth and climbed up into the turret, thankful the engineers who'd designed it had possessed enough sense to provide cover for a _live _gunner even though the weapon had been designed to be fired by computer from inside the ship. He punched in his access code, seizing control away from a computer which was, for some reason, not firing the thing at the alien gliders. He circled the gun, just barely in the saddle, and aimed in front of the alien glider.

The sound of the cannon making his ears ring as it blasted the alien glider out of the sky. The little ship floated on the waves, sparks marking the spot where the rider had met his death, and then slipped beneath. Steve spun the wheel, a manual override ridiculously 1945 in light of how advanced this weapon really was, and took aim at a second glider, and then a third. Three down, three to go. His eyes scanned the sky, watching for the remaining three.

A disturbance in the water caught his attention. A submarine? The thing rose above the waves and heaved itself into the sky, it's undulating form telling him this was a biomechanical machine, only smaller than the enormous Leviathan's. _This _was something he hadn't seen before. He spun the manual override, moving the cannon towards the Chitauri ship. Too slow! He wasn't going to make it. He dove out of the turret just in time to avoid being vaporized along with the gun, screaming in agony as his left leg crunched beneath him.

"Fuck!" Steve shouted in an uncustomary swear-word he'd picked up from the less well-mannered Clint.

The remaining gliders converged on his position. He ran for his life. Or more precisely, he hopped. A hop-run similar to the gait of a kangaroo as it dodged a larger predator. Zig. Zag. Zig. Zag. Weapons discharged all around him. Bernice… What he would give to taste one last kiss of those beautiful red lips! To say the words he'd been casually dropping into conversation to feel her out before he told her how he really felt about her.

The rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons firing from the shore drew the attention of the bigger ship, the biomechanical creature jerking its attention towards the new threat, leaving the gliders to deal with Steve. The cavalry … he hoped. Shots exploded all around him, only his decades-old experience dodging similar weapons fire in another time and war enabling him to survive thus far. An external stairwell had been left open, bodies of S.H.I.E.L.D. guards littering the deck. Heaving his body forward in a maneuver any major league baseball player learned, Steve dove into the stairwell, his hand missing the rail as weapons fire exploded millimeters from his body as he tumbled down the metal steps. Each thud down the stairs knocked a yelp out of his lungs. Just before he slid beneath the rail of the first landing and fell into the bowels of the ship, his hand met with the metal and stayed his fall.

"Ow," he whimpered, thanking his lucky stars he'd get that chance to finish his date with Bernice, after all. Pulling himself to his feet, he limped into the ship below.

X

_Note: believe it or not, the oceans around New York and New England are –not- too horribly icy in November due to the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water (and hurricanes) up the coast. I live on Cape Cod, where on south-facing beaches it's common for some of the more nutty locals to go for a 'polar swim' up until New Year's Day because the water temperature is significantly warmer than the air. I once swam in 63 degree water in December. So don't feel too terribly bad for Steve, who is cold, but not frozen to death as happened when Red Skull's ship went down. The exposure to the cold November air –after- he climbs out of the water is what's going to really hurt!_


	32. Chapter 32

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**blown-transistor, Arrows the Wolf, garnet86, GhibliGirl91, akatsukigurl93, Penny Tortoiseshell, WordsLikeStardust, Mystewitch, LEPrecon, harleyquill, NyteMayreOfJotunheim, **__and __**Pati G W Black.**_

_To __**Pati G W Black**__ … Team STERNICE tee-shirts will be available for sale at the end of the story, right opposite the booth for Team BLACKEYE. Wearers of the two faction's tee-shirts will then line up for a tug-of-war, the winning team to win free finger painting lessons from your favorite Alien. _

_To __**Adamantium Rose**_ … _one OC non-superhero character … in the action plotline … sort of … valuable member of the team … -not- wielding a gun … check!_

_To everybody else … yes … the Captain said his first ever curse-word as he broke his leg. Get over it! Having once broken my foot in such a tumble, I can attest the 1945-sanctioned words 'drat, darn, fiddlesticks, gosh, golly gee, and Jesus H Christ' just don't convey that level of ouchiness! O__pinions about the appropriateness of Steve using a curse-word appears to be running 50:50 in the reviews._

_BTW … the broken leg is UA canon._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 32

Bernice leaned as far as she could without falling to her death below, straining to see what was going on. Gunfire. Explosions. She had been in Manhattan when the alien armada had invaded mid-town. The dean had immediately locked the college down, ordering everyone into the basement to watch what was happening on the television, but not before Bernice had seen one of those enormous armored ships that looked like a slug come flying by. It had been terrifying.

This was worse.

"I can't _see _anything!" Bernice cried out with frustration. Liberty's arm swayed in the wind, a reminder that even in this land of plenty, the torch of liberty was only ever frailly held aloft to light the way for the rest of the world. The rickety structure felt much less secure _now _than when she'd enjoyed the beauty of a late-autumn sunset nestled into the safety of Steve's arms. She prayed she didn't have a birds-eye view to watch the man she loved die.

"Miss?" a weak, thin voice warbled from below. "Yoohoo! Miss! Could you come down, please?"

She was being called down by the caretaker, a wizened old man in his seventies they'd met on their way into the statue when he'd given them access as a favor to Tony Stark. She was going to be asked to leave. She debated whether to ignore him, wondering how such an old man had even made it up the narrow spiral staircase that got you as far as Liberty's crown, and discarded the notion. He was worried about her. Forcing him to climb the claustrophobic ladder to get where she was now would be cruel, not to mention it might cause the old guy to have a heart attack. She glanced over at the battle across the harbor, lights from the gliders and fires burning not doing much to illuminate what was going on.

"Please don't make me leave!" Bernice pleaded, sticking her head inside the torch to peer down the narrow step. "My … boyfriend … he's …."

"Come, come," the caretaker gestured. "I've got something that might help you _see."_

Bernice glanced back across the harbor at the battle which was just close enough she could tell it wasn't going well, but too far away to actually _see_ what was going on. There was nothing she could do to help. She felt so useless. Like a bump on a log. Steve was putting his life on the line for god and country while all she could do was stand here with her heart in her throat and watch.

To see? Oh! Wait…

"I'm coming right down!" Bernice shouted.

Mr. Stark claimed he'd hired her because he felt her sharp eye might add something of value to his company, a dubious claim in light of the quasi-adversarial competition between him and Steve. But on occasion, her ability to _see _things others missed _had_ come in handy. Yes. She had no idea what she was looking for, but she needed to _see_ what it looked like when the man she loved went into battle so that, the next time the engineers were geeking out over the design of some weapon, she might have something _valuable _to add to the discussion instead of simply doodling aliens?

She clattered down the stairs, really little more than a ladder with a rail on both sides, pressing her arms tightly against her sides as she squeezed past the narrow point where the platform for the torch expanded outwards from Liberty's hand. It had still been light out when they'd climbed up here together, the pinks and ochre's of the fading sunlight giving the interior of the oxidized copper skin a magical feel. Steve had secured the way behind her just in case she slipped, his large frame making hers tingle every time he had brushed against her from several rungs below. Now … the tube felt claustrophobic and scary in the dark descent, the golden glow from the torch disappearing the minute she descended past the platform. Breathe. Just breathe. If Steve could go into battle without his armor, the least she could do was make her _own _way down a ladder in the dark without making the poor elderly caretaker climb up to rescue her.

Gripping the narrow side-rails for dear life, she forced each foot to feel in the dark for the rung below, and then the one after it. Light illuminated her descent once more as she descended into the small landing at Liberty's shoulder. The old caretaker stooped over as he panted, still trying to catch his breath from the climb up a narrow staircase no man his age should ever be asked to climb. Concern etched the wrinkles on his face. The only reason he had come up here was because she'd been too rude to descend on her own after Steve had run out of here.

"You'll need this, Miss," the old caretaker said, handing her a flashlight. "We've got procedures and all for situations such as this. Just wanted to make sure you weren't stuck here alone in the dark."

The old man, who bore a striking resemblance to Stan Lee, reached over and yanked down the handle of an enormous electrical breaker that looked like something straight out of a Frankenstein movie, leaving them standing together in the dark. Bernice squeaked, her own breath an insidious echo in the darkened interior of the copper statue. The metal skin amplified every sound and made her breath sound like Darth Vader. She forced her breathing to slow to a less labored pace, ashamed of her own fear. If she was going to hang out with superheroes, it was time she got over herself and started toughening up!

"Don't want none of them aliens using The Lady for target practice," the old caretaker said, his voice warbling with an emotion Bernice understood was not fear. "Gotta keep her safe. She's a less tempting target if she's not all lit up like a Christmas tree."

"I understand," Bernice said. "I just … my friend. He's…"

The old man reached into the breast pocket of his National Park Service uniform and pulled out a trading card, the faded sepia colors indicating this card was an original. Emblazoned across the front of it was a popular image of Steve holding his shield. On the back, glistening in the torchlight, the blue-black ink of fresh Sharpie marker glistened 'Keep Liberty's torch burning … Steve.'

Such beautiful handwriting, she had noticed many times. The calligraphy of an artist…

"I didn't believe it when that mechanical-sounding man called from Stark Industries and said Captain America wished to bring his lady friend up to the torch," the caretaker warbled. "But I swear … your friend is the spitting image of the _old_ Captain America. I'm glad they found somebody to take his place."

"But…" Bernice stammered. "Steve … they kept his identity secret."

"My Ma worked for the USO," the caretaker said. "Snuck me in behind the curtains when they had him touring the country selling war bonds. Right before they sent him overseas to kick the Nazi scumbags butts. I was six at the time. The first Captain America … he wasn't angry or nothing when he found me hiding in his dressing room. Told me to tell all my friends to go gather every piece of scrap metal we could find and turn it in so our guys could make bullets. And I did, too!"

The convenient lie the government let everybody assume when they'd announced they'd resurrected Captain America from the grave to battle the aliens. A symbol of the nation's virility in light of the new drums of war beating not from some earthly nation, but from outer space. The same lie her grandmother had allowed her to believe until Steve, himself, had told her the preposterous truth.

"He's there … now," Bernice swallowed, looking back towards the entrance into the arm lay, realizing she needed to _see _what was going on if she was going to be any use whatsoever. She _had_ to know. Was Steve okay?

"Come," the old caretaker said, gesturing for her to follow in the opposite direction. He led her towards the spiral staircase which climbed into Liberty's crown. "Ya don't want to be caught up there at night. Even _–I- _was too chicken to stay up there in my younger days, and I been working here a long time. You'll like this view better. I promise."

Bernice followed him up, resisting the urge to shove past his sonorous pace and get to the observation platform. She rushed towards the window the moment the old man got clear, her eyes straining to find the tiny boat which had been swallowed up by the darkness. Had he made it? Or had the small lights swarming around the Triskelion shot him out of the water before he'd even gotten near?

The old caretaker doubled over, panting like a greyhound who'd just run a race. His voice still thin and weak with the exertion of the climb, he reached into a satchel and pulled out two contraptions that looked like something straight out of a Victorian Steampunk convention.

"One of the good things about having been here so long, Miss," the caretaker cackled, "is that you get to know where all the bones are buried. Here … you wear it like this."

The old man demonstrated how to strap the goggles over her eyes, the musty scent of old sweat and decaying rubber making Bernice cringe with disgust. These things were _old._ But the moment the old man reached over and hit a switch on the side of the goggles, everything came into view with an eerie, greenish light.

"Night vision goggles," the old caretaker said. "During the cold war, it was my job to watch for submarines sneaking into New York harbor. I hear the government's got new ones that can see right through walls and everything. But these ones aren't too bad for seeing if you got a pair of binoculars."

The caretaker handed her the biggest pair of binoculars she'd ever seen, so large it had a funny little telescoping pole that came out of the bottom to prop the spyglasses up against the floor. It weighed a ton, made of cast metal instead of the lightweight plastic models modern binoculars were made of, but she was glad to have it.

"Only got one of those," the old caretaker said. "My eyes ain't so good no more, so it only seems right _you _use it. Being Captain America's girlfriend and all. Sure wish my eyes were good enough to see him in action. But it will all be on the seven o'clock news. I'll catch it then."

Bernice thanked the man and focused on the battle unfolding before her, the alien gliders moving crisp and sharp in the eerie green glow of the night vision goggles. Yes. This gear was _perfect _for searching for suspicious objects in the channel between Liberty Island and Governor's island. The entire island had once been a fortress, Lady Liberty strategically placed upon the enormous, star-shaped stone platform of Fort Wood. Had Steve made it across the channel yet? At last she spied the tiny boat bobbing close to shore, upriver from the action. She saw no sign of Steve on the rocky shore, but her breath caught in her throat every time one of the gliders flew past where she knew he must be crouching, hidden in the shadow of the sea wall.

Pattern. Now that she had a high enough security clearance to know the truth, Steve had told her about the peculiar pattern he had noticed in all lower-ranking Chitauri soldier's movements, both now and back when he'd battled Nazi soldiers back in 1945. Drones, the Avengers called them. Creatures too limited in intelligence to do anything other than the limited role they had been assigned to perform in whatever massive alien army they were a part of.

And yet, when Steve spoke of the creature he was trying to befriend, he said the creature was like dealing with a child. Fearful. Cautious. But full of life and personality. Not the behavior of someone who'd spent their life as a drone in an alien army. The artwork it had drawn, its skills with a pencil growing as it forced itself to learn to communicate via the only method the species shared, showed intelligence. Steve, an artist himself, recognized the creature was desperately trying to communicate something so alien to them that humans just couldn't 'get it.'

Aha! A figure crouched in the water, knee deep as he waded in and sank up to his neck, only his head visible as he slid through the water like a dolphin. She lost sight of him several times, finally losing him completely as he disappeared around the far triangle of the peculiarly-shaped barge.

"Them government folks ever say anything about these aliens having submarines?" the old caretaker asked, himself peering into the water with his goggles and a tiny pair of bird watching binoculars.

"No, why?" Bernice asked.

"Probably nothing," the old caretaker said. "It's just … I don't recollect there being any rocks that far out from the island."

Bernice swung her larger binoculars around to search the waters where the old man pointed.

"I don't see anything," Bernice said. "Just waves."

"Probably just being paranoid," the old caretaker laughed. "All this talk of aliens brings back the bad old days when we thought the Soviets might sneak into New York harbor and launch a nuclear attack. After fifty years of staring through these binoculars at the waves, _everything _starts to look like a submarine."

A flash of action back on the Triskelion caught Bernice's eyes, Steve leaping up on the deck, a man dressed in black aiming a gun at him. A cry of horror escaped her throat as he lurched to his feet, her dismay turning into gratitude as she saw him in action, easily incapacitating the guard as if he were no obstacle at all. She'd seen video footage on television, but this time Steve was without armor and unarmed. He really was a super-soldier!

"I see him!" Bernice cried out. "There! On the deck!"

"Looks like an ant with _these _binoculars," the old caretaker said. "But … sheesh! Lookie at that. If I drop dead tomorrow, at least I can die happy telling my grandkids I got to see Captain America in action with my own eyes. Not just through the television!"

A glider deviated from its peculiar pre-ordained flight path, heading towards him. Bernice's momentary feeling of victory died as Steve ran for his life, diving behind an enormous cannon that looked like something off a battleship. Two more gliders deviated from where _they _patrolled, gliding into a formation she recognized from video footage she'd seen of the original invasion. She yelped as each explosion rained hellfire down around him, whimpering in terror as though _she _were the one under fire. Steve! Her terror turned to exhilaration as she realized the gun was turning, aiming at the gliders.

"Go … Steve!" she shouted, one arm shooting into the air in a victory dance a football player might make as it made a winning touchdown.

"That ain't no submarine!" the old caretaker shouted, killing her short-lived joy. "What in tarnation _is_ that thing?"

Bernice aimed her binoculars back to where the old man had pointed out a disturbance earlier. Dread sank into her stomach like acid as she saw a ship … a miniature version of the larger ships which had invaded mid-town … heave itself out of the water and launch itself airborne to join the fight. Nobody had ever said anything about the alien ships being able to swim beneath the water! She aimed the binoculars back towards where Steve battled the remaining gliders. He obviously saw the ship, too, because moments before its weapon discharged, he abandoned the cannon and crumbled onto the deck.

Bernice screamed, afraid she would faint.

"The cavalries here!" the old caretaker shouted beside her, the joy in his voice a stark contrast to the terror Bernice felt as she watched the man she loved zigzag to avoid weapons fire.

The larger ship veered off, leaving the two gliders to pursue him into the stairwell, his gait indicating he'd been wounded.

"C'mon. C'mon. C'mon," Bernice chanted, an eerie feeling of exhilaration coming over her as she watched him dodge shot after shot, his ability to anticipate the movement of the two remaining gliders milliseconds before they fired uncanny. Yes. There _was_ a pattern. Steve intuitively understood the limitations of whatever program the aliens were following and managed to stay one step ahead of it, the same way Mr. Stark could always outthink…

"A program!" Bernice exclaimed, the thought becoming so clear she felt like smacking herself on the head for her own stupidity. JARVIS handled the more routine movements of the Iron Man suit, but it took a _real _pilot to handle the suit in battle. Drones. They kept thinking of the Chitauri as sentient creatures because they were alive, but now that she thought about it, they acted more like a Predator drone uplinked via satellite to a distant pilot. Or a computer? Perhaps a little bit of both?

Beside her, the old caretaker cheered for a different reason. A big black Excursion raced along the shore towards the fortress, a figure standing upright in the moon roof firing a machine gun at the mini-Leviathan. Two figures leaped out. Agent Romanov and Nick Fury, she guessed, by the way they moved in the murky light. Fury ran to the back of the vehicle and disappeared, reappearing moments later with something on his shoulder. A rocket launcher. He fired a shot at the mini-Leviathan, punching a hole into the hull and causing the thing to circle around. They were joined seconds later by Iron Man, Bernice's boss, who fired shot after shot at the ship bearing down upon them. The cavalry _was _here. The reason the ship had abandoned its pursuit of Steve.

The two gliders pursuing Steve changed tactics, the limitations of whatever computer guided their actions finally being overcome as someone recognized the default program wasn't working and instituted a different one. The second battle which had just erupted on the shore was too far away to help Steve escape with his life. Bernice saw the open doorway at the same time Steve did, shouting for him to go for it as he dove into the safety of the stairwell.

"No!" she shrieked, feeling like she was going to faint as hellfire erupted around him, green flames shooting into the sky and obscuring the night vision goggles ability to see clearly into the doorway. Feeling sick, she searched for signs of a body as the flames began to subside, the gliders gone now that they thought their quarry was dead. There were bodies scattered all over the deck, but none where he had dove towards the doorway. She couldn't make out colors through the green of the night vision goggles, but she was certain none of the bodies was Steve. If he had met his death, it was _after _he had disappeared into the stairwell.

She replayed the scene in her mind, thankful for the gift God had given her to replay something she had seen over and over again as if it were a movie and freeze the video at any frame along the way to draw a picture of it. Eidetic memory. Most of his body had already been through the doorway when the flames had erupted, obscuring her vision. Lessons babbled by Mr. Stark as he tinkered in the lab about the properties of armor, how much shielding you needed to survive this weapon versus that, an odd lesson he'd once veered off on about how many layers of ordinary linen clothing would stop a Japanese Samarai sword. She was grasping at straws, but Steve had survived. She was certain of it! To think anything _differently _from that thought would cause her to drop dead of a broken heart.

There was nothing left to there to see. Aiming her night-vision goggles at the second front which had opened up, Bernice studied the peculiar movements of the new breed of alien ship as it maneuvered into position to take on the rest of the Avengers. Wishing she had a pencil and paper to scratch down notes, she burned each and every movement into her memory so she could give the man she loved an advantage the next time he went into battle.

X

_Note: Fort Wood dates back to just after the Revolutionary War, when the federal government seized control of the island to build the 11-pointed star-shaped fortress which remains there today. Fear of further hostilities turned out to be accurate when the War of 1812 erupted and British ships blockaded the entire Atlantic coast. Although British ships stymied trade to and from American ports, especially New York, who was their primary target due to its strategic location on the banks of the Hudson River which carried trade from far upriver and its notoriety as a haven for the privateers who were running circles around the British blockades up and down the coast, the placement of battalions on both Liberty Island and Governor Island prevented the British from entering the harbor itself. Each point of the 11-pointed star-shaped base of what is now the Statue of Liberty was designed to provide cover for the batteries of cannons which lined that entire end of the island, just waiting to stick a cannonball into a British ship no matter _what _angle it came from._

_Don't forget to leave your thoughts in the little square box below. Positive feedback, criticism, or a wish list, I love to hear from you!_


	33. Chapter 33

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**GhibliGirl91, Penny Tortoiseshell, Jelsemium, WordsLikeStardust, Arrows the Wolf, Katya Jade, Livi Lu, **__and __**Mystewitch.**_

_To __**Jelsemium**__, who pegged the elderly Caretaker for the Statue of Liberty in the last chapter to be this stories' cameo appearance of Stan Lee. I can go for that! Stan Lee with night-vision goggles standing in Liberty's crown looking for Soviet submarines … the theme many of his original comic book heroes were battling against. Let's give a cheer for the creativity of Stan Lee!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 33

Bodies. Three dead S.H.I.E.L.D. agents lay at the foot of the stairwell, barely a mark on them. What had happened here? And how had the Chitauri managed to breach the ship so quickly? The Triskelion was designed to _thwart _this kind of frontal attack!

Natasha?

No. Steve pushed the errant thought out of his mind. Natasha had been with Fury when the incident occurred. He'd watched the gliders come in and open fire from across the harbor. It was bad enough he felt uneasy about Natasha ever since she'd been injured, but now it appeared they had mole in their midst. The hatch he'd dove through should have been locked down the moment S.H.I.E.L.D. realized the ship was under attack.

Sirens indicated _someone _had given the alarm. The only light in the dim hallway came from flashing red lights, the stench of smoke giving the facility an insidious feel. He leaned against the wall for support, getting his bearings as he took the weight off his leg and enjoyed the absence of pain shooting all the way up to his crotch. Broken? Or just a sprain? The latter, he hoped. At least he could walk so long as he didn't keep any weight on the injured limb. He fished his cell phone out of his soggy pocket, thankful Fury had made him get one that was waterproof. It lit up, but no bars. Broken? Or were the Chitauri blocking the signal?

Where _was _everybody? It was Sunday, a time when staffing was normally pretty low. It was also a few days before Thanksgiving. Many S.H.I.E.L.D. members had taken the week off to fly home to spend time with their families. The aliens must have been aware of this weakness and chosen to attack while their ranks were thin. But why? What was important about this facility, other than the fact it provided a base of command close to a major metropolitan area?

Steve had navigated the fortress many times, but this was his first time coming in through something other than the front door. He examined the signs on the doors, some hinting at what lay within, others having an obscure alpha-numeric code. C-421. Fourth-level deck, third spiral arm of the triangle, room 21. He needed to get to A-217, the room where they stored his armor. Down two levels and across the heart of the fortress. Leaning against the wall to take pressure off his injured leg, Steve moved through the ship, his breathing ragged as daggers shot up his leg.

He paused when he got to the junction of the three wings. Footsteps marched in unison, more than Steve could hope to take on in his compromised condition. He faded into the shadows, holding his breath so his ragged breathing wouldn't alert them to his presence. Three soldiers passed, wearing S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms, but something about the way they marched gave Steve pause. Most S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were former military, but even the lowest-ranking agent tended to be a bit of a misfit like Hawkeye or Natasha. They were the elite, and they frequently had the egos to go with that. That meant agents didn't usually march in orderly lines unless they were doing a training drill.

His suspicions were confirmed with the group stepped over a body without pausing to check the man's pulse. Yes. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated. He waited until they moved into one of the wings before moving across the large central chamber. The click of a safety being slipped off an automatic weapon inches from the back of his head made him freeze.

"Who's the president of the United States?" a voice hissed. A voice that was familiar.

"Franklin Delano Roosevelt," Steve said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Clint. Don't scare me like that."

"Sorry," Clint said, holstering his weapon. "Had to make sure it was really you."

Clint gestured for him to follow, hurrying down the hall until he got to one of the anonymous doorways. Tapping twice, pausing, and then tapping once, he counted to three and then slipped inside, tugging Steve in behind him and shutting the door with a soft 'click.' He fiddled on the table, clicking on a small battery lantern.

"What happened here?" Steve asked.

"Don't know, exactly," Clint said, keeping his voice low. "I was down in logistics, poring over some South Pacific navigation charts trying to figure out where our friends might have disappeared off the map. Next thing I know, our own people are shooting at us."

A low moan came from the back of the room. "Clint?"

"Come," Clint said, tugging him towards a door at the back of the room. "She's hurt pretty bad." He grabbed the lantern off the table then gave the same knock, twice pause once, before opening the door. "I'm here, Maria. I found Steve."

Maria Hill sat slumped against the wall, her eyes filled with pain as she panted for breath. A wet, dark stain was visible on her dark uniform, even in the dim emergency lighting. Gut shot. A wound that could kill you if it wasn't treated right away.

"I've done everything I can for her," Clint said, fishing through the first aid kit already laying open at her side. He pulled out a package of clean gauze. "We've got to get her out of here or she isn't going to make it."

"Like hell," Maria panted, coughing as Clint gently moved the hand she had clutched to her abdomen, the previous gauze already saturated with blood. He pressed a fresh bandage against the wound. Maria looked up at Steve. "What the hell happened to _you? _You look like crap."

"The usual," Steve said, waving off the burn to his arm and pointing to his leg. "Just a sprain." His entire body was soot-ridden and his shirt so charred it barely clung to his body anymore, but the fabric had taken the brunt of the damage.

Maria waved Cliff away, grabbing the gauze and applying pressure herself. "Take care of him, will you? Before Fury chews my ass off for letting his prize super-soldier get all banged up."

Both Steve and Clint understood this was tough talk. Maria's way of taking control of a situation when there was little control left to be taken. If they didn't get her out of here quick and find a _real _doctor to treat her wounds, she'd bleed out. Even in the faint light, Steve could see her skin was too pale and clammy, a blue tint around her lips. Then again, maybe Maria was right?

"Can you help me splint this?" Steve asked Clint, pointing to his leg. "If you can stabilize it, I think I can fight. But I'll only do it under one condition."

"What?" Maria asked, her words coming out a pain-filled gasp.

"You're going to have to lay down so your heart doesn't have to work so hard, okay?" Steve said, forcing his voice to remain calm. "Then I'm gonna let Clint patch me up so we can both go for help. We'll take these alien buggers."

"Get them the hell off my ship," Maria ordered.

Maria gasped in pain as they helped her lay flat and propped her legs up higher than heart on a stack of photocopy paper. The room was spartanly furnished, leaving no blanket to cover her to fend off shock, and _none _of them was wearing a coat. Steve's shirt was too charred to provide any warmth, but Clint pulled the shirt off his back, ignoring her protests as he used it to cover her. Steve shoved fresh gauze into the wound to stem the bleeding while Clint searched for something to splint his leg. He finally ended up snapping off the legs of a chair, twisting the square metal tubing until it had the right shape. Steve yelped as Clint sliced his pant-leg and tugged on his foot to see if the bone was dislocated.

"Just like a guy," Maria said, her grim expression not matching the jest in her words. "Nothing but a big baby." There was fear in her eyes. Her life's blood was seeping out of her body and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

"Yeah, that's me," Steve said, grabbing Maria's hand and squeezing it. "Just a big baby. Need a strong woman to hold my hand and show me how it's done."

Maria nodded, gratitude in her eyes at the lie. Her hand clutched his as though her life depended on it which, in a way, it did. He was no good to anybody like this. The sooner Clint could stabilize the leg, the sooner he could help them fight their way out of here.

"It's broken," Clint said. "Just above the ankle, it looks like from the bruising. But it doesn't look like the bone has gone out of alignment. So long as we stabilize it, I think you can fight."

"Do it," Steve said, thankful he wouldn't have to endure another bone-setting with nothing but a dirty stick to bite down on. Been there. Done that. Getting a broken bone reset on the battlefield with five guys in a muddy trench holding you down while a sixth battle buddy yanked on your broken bone until got set right, or you passed out from the pain, was no fun.

Clint was efficient about setting the makeshift splint, ripping padding out of the chair he'd just destroyed to wrap the leg before he placed the splints around it. He used strips of vinyl and cloth, cut from the chair and a bench, to tie it tight. Steve gave Maria's hand one last squeeze and lurched to his feet, clamping down at the pain as he tested it out. It hurt like a bastard, _almost _as much from the splint digging into his leg as from the break, but that excruciating grinding feeling was gone. It was stable.

"We'll send someone for you as soon as we fight our way out of here," Clint promised Maria.

"Steve," Maria said, her voice vulnerable. "The Psi-Ops team. They've been compromised. That's where the breach occurred. I think they're after your pet alien."

"I'll check in on him after I get you out of here," Steve said.

"No," Maria coughed. "If they want him badly enough to storm the ship, there must be something they don't want him to tell us. You've got to make sure they don't get whatever they came for. Got it?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Steve said. Wounded or not, next to Nick Fury, Maria Hill was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s second-in-command.

"Clint," Maria ordered. "Get to Fury and tell him what we know."

"We don't know much," Clint said.

"We know about a dozen of our Psi-Ops team was compromised," Maria said. "These weren't people that just came on board. These were people I've known for years. Good men. I don't know _why _they turned, but all of a sudden it was like I was talking to robots. And then they shot me."

"Effects of the Tesseract cube?" Clint asked grimly.

"I don't think so," Maria said. "Their eyes didn't glow blue. I kicked one in the head, thinking that was the problem. It didn't snap him out of it."

"Some other form of mind control?" Steve asked.

"The guy I fought was a hell of a lot stronger than any human," Maria said. She winced in pain. The gunshot wound wasn't the _only _injury she was sporting, just the most serious. "I think these bastards somehow took out our guys and … I don't know … used prosthetics or something to make themselves look like them?"

…_The French villagers had told tales of shape shifters. Monsters that sucked the brains out of your head and then turned into you…_

"Steve?" Clint said. "You ready to rock and roll?"

"Rock … and roll?" Steve asked, feigning cluelessness.

"Bastard!" Maria coughed, holding her wounded abdomen. "Don't make me laugh. That joke only worked the first few weeks we thawed you out, Capsicle!"

Steve gave her hand a squeeze, then rose, still favoring the leg, but able to walk. He noted the fear in her eyes as she took shallow breaths to lessen the pain and closed her eyes. They were leaving her here alone. Helpless. At some point either the aliens would get what they came for and leave, or the military proper would storm the fortress and take it back. The question was, would anybody get to Maria in time to save her life? With no bars on his phone to inform somebody where to find her, if they didn't regain the fortress quickly, Maria was a dead woman. He made his way through the room to the door to the corridor.

"Where's your bow and arrows?" Steve asked.

"Where's your shield?" Clint retorted.

They gave each other a 'we're so screwed' look.

"Guess that takes the 'super' out of the super-soldier, then," Clint shrugged. He pulled his sidearm and chambered a bullet, his pale arms glistening past his khaki wife beater where he'd removed his shirt. Steve rubbed his hand along his own charred clothing and smeared soot on his colleague's arms, grunting approval when Clint's skin took on a mottled appearance of a muddy zebra.

"I always thought the 'super' part was highly over-rated," Steve said. "The only thing I ever wanted to be was a regular soldier."

With a grunt and a nod, they parted ways, Clint heading for the surface while Steve made his way deeper into the bowels of the ship.

X

_Note: A little Clint-love for those of you who are Hawkeye fans. He wasn't in the original UA thread for this scenario, but what the heck! Why write fanfic if you can't change the facts? I do enough factual writing for my day job. If I wanted facts, I'd entertain myself at night watching television!_

_Exsanguination (bleeding out) occurs when the amount of blood in your body drops so low there's no longer enough pressure in your arteries for your heart to pump it to your tissues. Think of it as siphoning gasoline … you have to suck the air out of the tubes and keep enough liquid in them at all times or the gas stops flowing. Elevating the wounded area above the level of your heart, applying pressure, and laying flat with your feet elevated can prolong your life until medical help can arrive. Unfortunately, with a wound to the torso, there –is- no way to keep it higher than the rest of your body._

_A bullet to the abdomen can prove fatal not simply from exsanguination, but from the sepsis that results from fecal coliform bacteria leeching into the abdominal cavity from pierced intestines. It's the reason old Western movies always depict the cowboy who is gut shot asking the others to leave him a gun with one bullet in the chamber. Sepsis (blood poisoning) is a horrible way to die, with pain, high fever, and seizures, that can take days to kill you even if a doctor removes the bullet and stitches you up. Thankfully, these days most gut shot patients survive if treated promptly with a fierce regiment of antibiotics. If the intestinal rupture is bad, surgeons may need to cut into your abdominal cavity and, quite literally, vacuum it out with saline after they stitch the pierced intestine back together._

_Poor Maria Hill! They need to kick those aliens off the ship fast or she isn't going to make it…_

_Don't forget to drop a review in the little comments box below. Reviews make me smile … and also weigh in whether to save Maria's life or let her bleed to death in a dark supply closet. _

_[*Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!*]_


	34. Chapter 34

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Jelsemium, Pati G W Black, Guest, Qweb, Penny Tortoiseshell, Justsuzaku, Adamantium Rose, Katya Jade, Arrows the Wolf, **__and __**blown-transistor. **_

_I'd especially like to thank those of you who correct errors (Qweb caught a doozy!), enlighten me about aspects of canon I might not be aware of, or just tell me what they'd like to see included in this story to make it better. Stories were never meant to be static things, but interactive, living creatures told around a campfire in a cave or sung in a great hall before a king, altered at every telling just a little to meet the needs of your audience. What use does a story serve but to entertain its readers?_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 34

"This is better than watching one of them action flicks on Imax," the old Caretaker said, his odd combination of cold-war era night vision goggles and teeny tiny birdwatcher binoculars pressed against the glass of Liberty's crown.

"It certainly is," Bernice said, lacking his enthusiasm for the battle unfolding across the harbor. Or perhaps that was because she knew Steve was as vulnerable and capable of getting killed, despite his enhanced physical capabilities, as any other human. The only thing 'super' about a superhero, she was finding out, was other people's perceptions of them.

She counted. One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one. The odd delay Steve had spoken of when she'd asked him about his encounters during the alien invasion. Her binoculars afforded her a much better view than that of the Caretaker, but it was still anything but perfect. Between the distortion created by the eerie green light of the night vision goggles and the limitations of the binoculars themselves, she could just barely make out enough features to recognize who she was looking at.

Nick Fury shot another shoulder-held rocket at the mini-Leviathan, doing little harm. The creature reacted the moment the rocket exploded against its hull, as though it were in pain. It seemed to recognize, of its own volition, an immediate threat, but it ignored smaller ones. And threats that were unfamiliar. The way even the bravest human might recoil from stepping on a snake, but walk fearlessly past an old rusty canon perched in a war memorial. The bigger Leviathans had been part machine, part technology, so she assumed the little one was as well. Did it have independent survival skills beyond whatever program the Chitauri were using to make it behave as though it were a ship? Like a war horse, trained to ignore enemy fire and carry its rider into battle, but which might occasionally rear up and do something other than the will of its rider if it was directly threatened? Bernice incorporated this idea into her counting, trying to note when the baby spaceship acted like a machine, and when it acted like a frightened animal.

She noted another delay when Natasha jumped up on top of the Excursion and swung onto an alien glider, aiming it to knock a second glider out of the sky before leaping back to the ground milliseconds before it crashed. Sometimes the gliders would stay in formation no matter what, even if it meant a Chitauri soldier's death. But other times, a creature would veer off at the last second, recognizing a threat that _could _have been avoided earlier, but reacting a half-second or so before it normally _would _have reacted if the two-and-a-half second delay Steve had noted was set in stone.

Mindless chatter her video game developing friends had prattled on about over far too much beer and pizza, geek talk that had made her brain hurt about handicaps, vitalities, reaction times and skills as they had begged her to bring their video game heroes to life for them visually suddenly clicked into place. One computer program, multiple live players, and game-pieces with independent survival skills like well-trained animals. Was this whole thing a game? A great big game for some sick alien god? The answer to the problem was too absurd to contemplate, but wasn't that why she'd been brought on board in the first place? To look at the obvious and piece it all together, no matter how preposterous it might sound to someone who had been trained to know better?

She noted another delay when Iron Man zigzagged in front of the alien ship, alternating between taunting it and shooting his pulse weapon at it. It appeared as though the creature was indecisive, warring with itself over which program to follow. Pursue? Or chase another target? The mini-Leviathan had released six more gliders moments after lifting itself out of the ocean, bringing the total now swarming the Avengers like flies up to nine. Unfortunately, no matter what they did, the presence of the Leviathan with its heavier weaponry meant they were seriously outgunned.

Steve. Where was Steve? Why hadn't he emerged from the Triskelion, wearing his armor to join his comrades in battle? Was he… No! She shoved the unwanted thought right out of her mind. He was alive! He had to be! She had seen no body in the place where he had dove into the open doorway. He hadn't emerged to help his friends for some other reason.

"Here come reinforcements, I think," the Caretaker whooped, his voice warbling with excitement. "Who's that fellow on the motorcycle coming in there on the other side?"

Bernice swung her binoculars from where Iron Man played chicken with the Leviathan to a motorcycle racing down the road that ran all the way around the island on top of the sea wall. Steve's bike? No. This bike was much smaller. One of those Japanese racing numbers Steve made fun of, still having not gotten used to the idea that Japan was now an ally. Whoever drove was heedless of the gliders that broke ranks from the embattled Avengers to address the new threat racing into battle, however small. The rider did not flinch. The bike came at them. The gliders fired at the rider the exact second Bernice anticipated they would fire, as though they were conducting a well-orchestrated training drill. The bike slid sideways along the ground, dragging the rider with it as sparks flew off the pavement.

"Ohmygod!" Bernice shrieked as his helmet smashed off of his head and she got a good look at his face. "Doctor Banner!"

"Damn!" the Caretaker said. "Thought for sure they'd send in more reinforcements than that. He's only one guy. I can't see too good, you know. Tell me what's happening."

"I think he's okay," Bernice said, heaving a sigh of relief. "He's getting up." She watched as Doctor Banner lurched to his feet, crouched over in pain. His gait was odd. She blinked, tapping the side of her night vision goggles to see if they were working properly as the mild-mannered doctor appeared to grow larger, his countenance becoming outright menacing as he threw himself to the ground and lifted his head like a wounded tiger, shrieking at the gilders circling around for another shot. The glider fired, hitting him with a near-direct shot, but when the hellfire cleared, it was no longer Doctor Banner standing next to the mangled motorcycle, but…."

"Where did _he _come from?" the Caretaker shouted, shaking with excitement. "Those alien flyboys are _toast _now that the Hulk is here!"

Bernice glanced over to the Caretaker and realized how ridiculous they both looked in their musty night vision goggles. An odd laughter bubbled to her throat, sounding like some hysterical old woman, talking to people who didn't exist and laughing at them like a madwoman. She remembered the look on Doctor Banner's face when she'd asked him about the last time she'd noticed him at the scene of a Hulk sighting. She looked to the Caretaker and gave him the only answer she legally could.

"That's classified…"

The mini-Leviathan grew tired of its game of cat and mouse with Iron Man. As the Hulk smashed glider after glider, the bigger ship abandoned what had appeared to be a carefully orchestrated group of maneuverability protocols to get the job done and suddenly began to behave in a totally unpredictable fashion. Bernice could almost _picture _some teenage alien seizing control of a video game joystick and start maneuvering the game piece to gobble up vitalities so he could win the prize. There was still a delay compared to a nimble asset such as Iron Man, but the delay in reaction time was now less than one second. Three-quarters of a second, perhaps? Still a delay, but very small.

"They're coming! They're coming!" the Caretaker shouted. "The governor finally sent in the National Guard!"

Bernice swung her binoculars around, not sure which piece of action to watch. The Leviathan, she thought. Those were the ships whose movements had been too ponderous to notice a delay caused by something other than the sheer size of the biomechanical … whatever the hell they were … in the bigger versions of those ships. This smaller one was much more nimble, the way a preschooler could run circles around its parents. It moved around enough that she was able to see patterns that might be missed in its slower moving Leviathan parents.

"The children…" Bernice said, suddenly realizing why the Chitauri might have been experimenting on human children. What had Steve told her? Hadn't the Nazi's set up some kind of breeding camps during World War II? She filed the thought aside for future reference.

"No! No! No!" the Caretaker shouted. "Stop! Stop!"

Bernice stared, horrified, as the Leviathan jerked unexpectedly to one side, as though someone had shoved the joystick too far, and slammed into one of the brick buildings that lined the road around the island, knocking it right into the path of the oncoming military convoy. Jeeps skidded sideways, two of them shooting right of the sea wall into the harbor, a third one getting buried in falling bricks. The Leviathan flapped its tail like a salmon trying to leap up to the next tier of a salmon ladder and knocked a second building over, blocking the rear of the convoy. They were trapped.

"Get out of there!" the Caretaker shouted. "It's an ambush!"

Men in combat fatigues leaped out of the jeeps, pulse-reactor equipped M-17's in hand as they fired uselessly at the mini-Leviathan. One of them pulled a rocket launcher and fired, but it did little damage, only angering the creature as it swam through the next building as though it were water, raining bricks down upon the men. Bernice tried to discern a pattern, but now its pattern was now truly unpredictable, as though there really _was _somebody home instead of some mindless machine spewing out probabilities and running random computer codes.

The ship circled around, ignoring the harassing shots of Iron Man, who was inflicting little damage, and aimed right for the tallest building which towered over the embattled men. It slammed into it like a battering ram, tipping the entire brick structure right off its foundation. It careened forward in slow motion, oddly intact as though it were constructed of Legos. Bernice stood, horrified, unable to do anything but watch.

The building never hit the ground.

The Hulk stood underneath the front wall, holding it up while men swarmed like ants, abandoning their vehicles and climbing over the shattered brick building knocked down earlier. As soon as they cleared the danger zone, they lining up in battle formation in front of the next building, guns aimed in unison to take down the Chitauri gliders. The aliens had formidable technology, but humanity had learned from the last invasion where to hit the poorly shielded Chitauri drones. The pulse reactor enhanced M-17's they used now were packing a hell of a lot more punch than the M-16's they used in the last engagement. One by one, the tide began to turn as glider after glider couldn't overcome the limitations of whatever program some malignant entity was using and was shot out of the sky.

"Doctor Banner!" Bernice shrieked as the precariously tilted building finally fell. She could discern no movement in the dust cloud that arose as the building cracked into several pieces. She didn't know the doctor well, but she had worked with him enough times that she would mourn his loss.

A glider passed over, having been knocked out of formation by a well-placed shot by Iron Man only moments before. A big green hand reached up through the bricks and grabbed it, spinning the glider around as though it were a merry-go-round and flinging it straight into a shattered wall. Bernice's heart leaped for joy as a the rest of the Hulk's large, green body crawled out of the rubble, a victorious grin on its face as it surveyed its handwork. Bernice had seen that grin once … on Doctor Banner's face when an engineer had made a technological breakthrough on the contraption that had been drilled into the Melanesian Island children's brains. Whoever this Hulk was he transformed into, Doctor Banner was still in there somewhere, too.

"Look out!" the Caretaker shouted.

Whatever limitation was imposed on the lower-ranking aliens, it was no longer an issue with the mini-Leviathan. The thing behaved like an enraged bull, angered by one taunt too many from a toreador. It was wounded just enough to want to hurt somebody, but not badly enough to slow it down. It charged the Avengers storming the Triskelion, who now fought two separate fronts as gliders shot at them from one side while men dressed in black S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms shot at them from the deck of the ship. A man she _thought _might be Hawkeye emerged from a hatch behind the imposters on the deck of the ship, firing at the imposters to distract them from the Avengers coming at them from the front.

Agent Romanov moved in like a wraith, her cat-like movements deadly as she took down one imposter and moved onto the next one without so much as a backwards glance. Bernice shivered. The woman moved like a cobra striking prey. No delay in _those _reaction times, that was sure! She rushed up to Hawkeye, speaking briefly to him, and then disappeared into the ship.

Bernice's rush of hope that, at last, the tide was turning in favor of the Avengers, was dashed when the Leviathan turned and charged right for them, weapons blasting everything into oblivion that dared get in its way. Iron Man fired at the ship and was swatted out of the way like a fly.

"Mr. Stark!" Bernice shrieked as Iron Man crashed into the ground.

Lightning cleaved the sky, illuminating the scene in white light as one bolt raced out of the clouds like the roots of a tree and sparked electricity down the length of the living ship. Out of nowhere, a man dropped out of a thundercloud, right onto the ship's back. He buried an enormous hammer into the beasts brain. The beast faltered, writhing in a death-spin, trying to shake the man off his back. Thor. God of Thunder. Steve had _told _her the ancient legends were true, but the man she had met at the dance had seemed more like some good natured jock in high school than a hero out of Norse legend. Now … she believed. Thor held on, raising the hammer Bernice knew was named Mjolnir and pounded the creature senseless. Finally, it dropped out of the sky and lay shuddering on the ground. The living ship heaved one last breath and lay still. The God of Thunder leaped off and strode over to where Iron Man lay, unmoving, and reached down to help him up.

"He's alive!"

Bernice cried with joy as her boss reached up, one gauntleted fist clasping hands with the God of Thunder, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Arms clasped in fellowship, the two slapped each other on the back and jumped back into the fray, providing cover for the regular soldiers who were finishing off the last of the Chitauri gliders. Behind them, the mini-Leviathan exploded, whatever self-destruct protocol the Chitauri had in place to prevent their technology from falling into enemy hands taking over. By the way even the enlisted National Guard soldiers cleared the proximity the moment the ship went down and dove for cover, it appeared this expectation was now part of whatever training regular soldiers went through to learn to fight aliens.

The Avengers battled their way past the remaining human imposters who fought them on the deck of the ship, disappearing inside. A short time later, the National Guard finished up and secured the Triskelion, some men going inside, others taking up sentry positions on the perimeter.

"Whoopee!" the Caretaker whooped. "They won!"

Bernice breathed a sigh of relief, exhaustion making it feel as though she were ready to fall over now that the adrenaline of watching the fight was over. Ambulances arrived. Several people were wheeled out on stretchers, whisked away to local hospitals to tend to their injuries. Bernice checked her cell phone. No messages from Steve.

The Caretaker headed downstairs, making excuses about not being able to stray too far from the bathroom at his age. More soldiers came, the ground so thick with them it was hard to tell one soldier from the other. She couldn't find Steve. Where was he? She checked her phone again. No messages. She'd avoided calling him during the battle, not wishing to put his life in danger from something so stupid as having the phone ring just as he was sneaking up on an alien, but it appeared there would be no danger if she called him now. The call went to voice mail. She left a message asking if he was alright.

More stretchers were wheeled off the ship, but this time the shapes they carried were long, white bags. Body bags. How many people had died tonight? Was one of them Steve? Was that why he hadn't called her yet to tell her he was okay? Bernice began to cry.

The phone rang.

"H-hello?" Bernice sobbed.

"Miss Rosenthal," a mechanical voice said. "Mr. Stark asked me to inform you Commander Rogers survived."

"J-J-JARVIS," Bernice wept for joy. "Is he … is he alright?"

"The Commander sustained serious, but non-life-threatening injuries," JARVIS said. "He will call you as soon as they finish debriefing him."

Non-life-threatening injuries. He was going to be okay!

"Oh, GOD!" Bernice shrieked with joy. "Thank you!"

"I must say," JARVIS said, amusement coming into his otherwise mechanical voice. "Nobody has ever called me _that _before. Really. I'm only an AI."

Bernice sobbed uncontrollably, the tension of the last few hours overwhelming her and destroying the last shred of self-control. How could Steve do this kind of work all the time when just the act of _watching _him put his life on the line turned her into a basket case? She barely heard the rest of what JARVIS said.

"A launch will be arriving at the Liberty Island dock in twenty minutes," JARVIS said. "Mr. Stark asked me to arrange for you to be transported home."

Giving the elderly Caretaker a hug and thanking him for all he had done, she promised she'd bring Steve back for a picture at some point in the future and got into the boat that came to take her home. It had barely gotten clear of the last pylon on the dock when the lights came back on, Liberty's torch shining golden against the night sky once more.

It occurred to her how sturdy and strong the light appeared to shine, a beacon for all to see. Only _she _knew how frail it really was, having stood upon the torch and felt Liberty's arm tremble during the onslaught of the alien attack. Bernice hoped that if there really _was _a Goddess of Liberty, that someone like Steve was watching her back.

X

_Note: I'd written myself into the odd writers corner where I have our hero inside the ship, pursing his own plot device which you'll learn about in the next chapter, but the UA plot-thread I've adopted had all this other interesting battle stuff going on outside, where Steve couldn't see it. I hate it when author's adopt this omniscient point-of-view to get over the limitations imposed by their viewpoint character. I mean … really! Where does it say Captain America has remote viewing capabilities? It made much more sense to have Bernice, who's standing across the harbor with a pair of goggles plastered to her face ANYWAYS, to describe the UA battle. With my own personal twist … of course._

_Thanks for reading! _


	35. Chapter 35

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Lucy Park, Adamantium Rose, GhibliGirl91, Undapper Thoughts, Lime Toaster Cat, Guest, Primary Feather, Arrows the Wolf, Penny Tortoiseshell, **__and __**blown-transistor.**_

_To __**Guest, **__who was the only one who got my joke about JARVIS pretending Bernice was referring to –him- as God instead of thanking god when he told her Steve was still alive. For some reason, the concept of a sentient AI intrigues me (as anyone who's read my Reality of Life with a Superhero fanfic knows)._

_Special thanks to __**Adamantium Rose**__, who pointed out some just plain bad writing in the last chapter. It's not easy describing alien technology. It's all-too-easy to fall back on the bad writing habit of using too many similes and metaphors. Now I have to go back and work on fixing it!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 35

Steve grabbed the wall, the rocking of the ship throwing him off balance in his tenuous state. He'd been aware of weapons fire echoing through the ship for quite some time, but this was the first time the Triskelion had taken a direct hit. With alarms blaring and red lights flashing, it was hard to tell what was happening three decks above. The only reason the ship would be taking fire was if defenders were trying to get onboard. Either that, or the military had decided it was better to just blow it up rather than risk the aliens getting their hands on it. The former, he hoped. With the Triskelion anchored in New York harbor, the aliens had little hope of holding onto it.

Each step caused pain to shoot up his leg, making him dizzy and nauseous, but he pushed it back, forcing himself to keep moving. He'd suffered worse, including his last memory of being tossed against the ceiling of Red Skulls warplane as it had slammed into the ocean. He'd sunk beneath the icy waters, his mind clinging to the last image he had of Peggy as she'd released him from the kiss before he'd leaped onto the landing gear, welcoming the water into his lungs as he'd prayed for the end to come quick so he wouldn't suffer. There had been no white light. No angels. No Valhalla. All there had been was silence until he'd woken up in a hospital in New York, vintage tunes playing on a radio that had been a ruse to ease his rebirth into a different century.

He'd wanted to tell Peggy how much he'd loved her when she'd released him from the kiss. Tell her as he'd aimed the ship into the ocean and said _yes_, he _would _meet her for a dance. But he'd held back, always cautious when it came to matters of the heart. A lifetime of rejection had taught him the fairer sex could be cruel when you wore your heart upon your sleeve. Doctor Erskine had changed his body, but _nothing _would ever change his memory of how much it hurt when a woman rejected you.

The ship rocked again, the explosion audible even over the screeching of the sirens. Steve wished somebody would turn them off. Everybody who _needed _to know the ship was under attack already knew, or was dead. They made him feel disoriented, pain giving him the eerie sense of floating above his body as it moved itself down the hall of its own volition. Part of his consciousness was aware of his own pain, but the larger part ruminated about matters that had nothing to do with retrieving his armor so he wouldn't be so darned vulnerable.

Bernice. He wasn't certain when the thought had begun to intrude into his mind. A tender moment. A smile. Flitting around his subconscious like a butterfly, fragile wings touching upon his thoughts at odd moments, like the way she laughed whenever he nibbled down her neck, so much different than Peggy's laugh had been. That laugh belonged only to Bernice, and he found himself doing whatever he could to elicit it from her. It made him warm and fuzzy in a way even Peggy had never been able to make him feel. It made him warm and fuzzy _now, _blending in with the pain of his broken leg and giving the emotion a bittersweet edge, reminding him he had something else to lose besides a failed mission or his own life.

Why hadn't he told her when he'd rushed out of there tonight? He'd _meant _to tell her. Sometime this week, perhaps? If all went well at the family gathering she was dragging him to for Thanksgiving that had him tied up in a bundle of nerves. _Peggy's_ family. But also Bernice's. Did _any_ of them have any idea who he even was? He'd _hinted _at the words, casually dropping them into conversation for weeks now, carefully observing her to see if she found his affections amusing. The way she blushed and looked up at him through veiled lashes, as though wishing he'd say more, had made him bolder. Why hadn't he told her? If he died in battle tonight, would she even know? Or would she move on, as Peggy had done, so ready to love another because in her mind, because he had never said the words, it hadn't been _real_?

Keeping silent was the right thing to do…

He was sick of always doing the right thing, dammit! Why hadn't he told her?

He realized he'd been standing outside the door of the armory for some time now, his own pain reminding him he even _had _a body. Pay attention! Ruminating about something he had no power to change would only get him killed.

"I have a date," he said aloud, forcing himself to hear his own words so the sound of his own voice would make his intent _real_. "And I'm going to keep it."

The door to the armory was open. He stuck his sidearm in first, cautiously pushing the door open and listening, what little he could hear above the sirens. Could somebody turn that darned thing off? How the hell was he supposed to take back a ship when he couldn't _think?_ He burst in through the door and threw himself to the ground, rolling so he came up next to a narrow bench between the first row of lockers. Pain shot up his leg, reminding him he shouldn't be doing anything so stupid in his condition. Nothing. Not even bodies. Grunting in pain, he rose to his feet and verified the special operations locker room was empty. Hawkeyes locker was open, his bow and arrow gone. Had he come here first to retrieve it? His hope died as he got to his _own _locker and realized the lock had been smashed. His shield was missing, leaving only his helmet and suit.

The aliens had his weapon…

"Damn!" he hissed, rummaging through his locker to see if anything else had been taken. He stripped off the charred shirt and pulled on his red, white and blue armored jacket, wincing as he pulled it over the burn on his arm. The helmet and utility belts went on easy enough, but there was no way he was going to get his pants on over that splint. Boots? Or no boots? His shoes were sopping wet, announcing his presence with a 'thwup thwup thwup' as he walked. He pulled on one boot and stared at the second in dismay. He didn't have time to re-splint his leg, but the boot wouldn't fit over it. He buckled it up as far as he could, stealing laces out of Hawkeye's locker to tie the upper half around the outside of the splint so it wouldn't flap as he walked. If he'd been wearing them when he'd dove off the pulse cannon, his leg probably wouldn't be broken right now.

Most promotional art depicted his boots as being red, but they were natural leather, taken from the back of a Texas longhorn. People _wanted _to see red, so that is what they saw. It had been one of the first questions Bernice had asked him once they'd finally begun talking. Why did everyone always paint his boots as being red when they were clearly reddish brown? It was one of the things he loved about her. She _saw _him as he really was.

He should have told her, dammit! Why hadn't he?

Yanking on his leather gauntlets, the same reddish-brown leather as his boots, he limped to the place Maria Hill had ordered him to defend at all costs. The alien the other creatures were trying to bust out of here. The creature hadn't _seemed _like someone especially high ranking, passive almost to the point of being timid. Had it all been a ruse? No. Steve was many things, but he was a good judge of character, his years of being on the short end of the stick teaching him to be cautious about the failings of others without being paranoid about them. Maybe Maria was wrong?

The door to the detention center was ajar, the guards long past any help _he _could give them. Steve paused to close ones' eyes open in an expression not of fear, but horror. What had the man seen when he'd stared into the maw of eternity? Not the silence Steve had welcomed with open arms, its peaceful nothingness beckoning to him even now, now that he had something besides duty to live for. A low-pitched thrum was audible through the open door, similar to the thrum his alien friend used to communicate, but louder. It resonated more in his bones than in his ears. It was almost as though _two_ creatures were communicating. An invader and the alien inside the cage? Steve pushed open the door just enough to see.

Natasha? The alien cowered in the far end of the cage. Natasha stood in a classic martial arts fighting stance as she spoke to an African-American man wearing a black S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform standing in front it. Some sixth sense warned Steve to wait, to make sure the guard wasn't one of the compromised PsiOps team Maria Hill had warned him about. The guard's skin was too dark, the blonde afro visible even in the emergency lighting. One of the missing Melanesian Islanders? Recognition niggled at Steve's subconscious. He'd seen this man someplace before, and not just in a missing person's report.

Natasha's stance was odd. Not her usual cat-like grace, but a stance that reminded him of Nick Fury when he was trying to rein in Tony Stark. Stark was too used to being in charge of his _own _empire. He didn't buckle easily to the control of another. Not even when he knew it was necessary. A deep-throated thrum resonated in Steve's bones, but as neither creature's mouth moved, it was impossible to tell who was doing the speaking. The imposter? Or the alien inside the cage?

The dark-skinned stranger gestured at Natasha with defiance, stepping forward as though he were busting _her _down in rank. Natasha did not strike the way she normally would cut down an assailant who moved towards her, unless she was deliberately assuming passive body language to interrogate a prisoner, but stood firm. As though she wished to communicate she wasn't going to put up with any crap. The sound filled the room once more, almost as though it were _two _creatures arguing, but the door to the cell was closed. His alien friend suffered from severed vocal chords, so perhaps it was only one. The stranger gestured at Natasha as though he expected she should bow before it and Natasha laughed, drawing herself up to stand at her maximum height.

It was the Danziger Totenkopf on the man's black beret, the death insignia, which finally jogged Steve's memory. The enemy who had been in command of the village that first mission they'd lost the helicarrier. The mission which had injured Natasha. One of the alien commanders. Memories of the _last _time he had fought one of the Schutzstaffel, the one's that didn't just fall down when you had to fight them, intruded into his mind. He needed his…

"Shoot," he hissed, finally realizing what Natasha held in her hands. Hawkeye's bow and quiver were strapped across her back. In her hand sat _his _shield.

The alien commander gestured at Natasha as though he were angry, the low-pitched noise getting louder. It stepped forward, gloves in it's hands as though he were about to strike her on both cheeks, a gesture Steve had witnessed many times when one Nazi commander disagreed with another. _Dummkopf! _Stupid. The intruder expected Natasha to capitulate, and she did. Her entire body relaxed as she glanced in Steve's direction and gave him that pleased little smirk she always got right before she moved in for the kill. Damn! She had seen him! Her body language changed, subtly pointing in Steve's direction. Her shield-arm came up, lining up for the throw.

Natasha was going to kill him. And she intended to do it with his own shield!

"You're not in charge of this world," Natasha said to the intruder. She turned and looked straight at Steve, the shield aimed straight at his chest. "Isn't that true, man out of time?"

Steve dove out of harm's way, his gimpy leg slowing him down. The shield flew at him, not in the way he expected, but as gently as a parent would pitch a wiffle ball to a toddler. So slowly and easily did the shield glide straight into his hand that he had time to recover, momentarily dumbstruck, until years of training kicked in and forced him to move. Natasha gave him a victorious grin as she erupted into a whirlwind of action, landing a roundhouse kick right on the side of the imposter's head.

"Kill it!" Natasha shrieked, pulling guns out of her utility belt with both hands and letting the stranger have it with both barrels. Whatever this thing was, Natasha wasn't taking any chances.

The intruder flinched as Natasha emptied both chambers into his chest, momentarily thrown back against the walls of the observation chamber, but he did not fall to the ground. Kevlar? Blood stains darkened the intruder's uniform where he'd been hit, indicating her shots had met the mark. The man howled, a low-pitched primal scream not of fear, but rage, and hurled himself at Natasha as though she were a cockroach to be stepped on and squashed. Natasha danced artfully to one side, taunting the intruder as she moved him into position for Steve to take his shot.

"What are you waiting for?" Natasha shouted, giving him a disgusted look as though he were a simpleton. "I said kill it!"

_That_ jolted Steve out of his inaction, the behavior of the Black Widow _now _being everything he expected it to be. The huntress moving in for the kill, stepping aside so her cubs could feed upon the weakened prey. He drew back his shield-arm and lined it up, the razor-sharp edge of the virbanium so hard it could penetrate even steel. The intruder turned to shoot at him, giving him a perfect shot at its head. A 9 mm slug slammed into Steve's chest, causing him to grunt in pain, but it the caliber wasn't high enough to pierce his armor. His vision blurred, but he picked the one standing in the middle of the five or six that danced before his addled brain and let fly the shield, the intruder unable to get out of the way in time to avoid having the shield cleave its head clean off. Steve sighed with relief, waiting for the body to fall.

It didn't.

"What the…" he said. The headless intruder finished its lunge towards Natasha and grabbed her neck. Natasha flailed, breaking free with a roundhouse block and kicking it, yanking two of the many small knives she kept tucked into her weapons belt and stabbing the creature repeatedly.

"A little help here?" Natasha shouted at Steve as he gaped like an idiot at the headless man she was fighting. Was he hallucinating?

Steve pulled his second sidearm and emptied all nine shots into the … whatever the hell it was! It was _obviously _no man! Bluish-grey blood spurted out of the severed neck, but his shots only slowed it down. Steve retrieved his shield and rushed forward, slamming down a blow to cleave off one of the creatures arms. The intruder howled despite its lack of a head, its voice so low it made Steve's skin crawl. He glanced into the cage, expecting his alien friend to act horrified at seeing its comrade killed right in front of it, but the Chitauri sat upon its bed in a fetal position, hands over its head as though it expected to be beaten.

The headless imposter grabbed Steve with its remaining arm. He yelped in horror, staring down into the vacant neck as it picked him up and threw him across the room. Steve's head smashed against the steel wall, only his helmet sparing him from having his head explode like a watermelon. It added to his already surreal grip on reality as two, no three, aliens danced in front of his eyes, arms flailing as though it still had two of them instead of the one he was curtain he'd left it with after he'd cut the other one off. He stumbled, retrieved his shield, and threw it at the creature a third time, aiming for the midsection to cut the thing in half and be done with it. To end this weird nightmare he was having about a man with no head attacking them.

The intruder still stood, as though the shield had _not _gone through it the way Steve had _thought _he'd just watched it cut the creature in half. Steve rubbed his eyes, certain he was hallucinating, the trauma of his earlier injuries and a bang to the head causing him to see things that couldn't possibly be there. The imposter stepped forward and grabbed Natasha by the throat.

Steve reached into his tool belt, fumbling for something, anything, to finish off the unbelievable creature of nightmare and came up empty-handed. With nothing left to throw at the intruder, Steve threw _himself _at it instead, grabbing it by the back of its shoulders just beneath the bloody spot where its head had once been and yanking back. Wait a minute! It _did _have two arms! Hadn't he just…?

The creature reached back, a double-jointed move no human could have made, and scratched at Steve's face not with human fingers, but the clawed grasp of an insect. Two small antennae protruded from the place the creatures head had once been, eye stalks staring at him as it turned its attention from Natasha to the bigger threat. _Him._

Weight pulled him forward and he realized it was no longer a _whole _creature clutched onto his body, but half of one. The upper half, to be precise. Natasha still battled with the lower half, two claw-like arms having sprouted out of the severed torso. Steve retched, the stench of the creature filling his nostrils with blood and some other odor he couldn't place, but seemed familiar. His training fought with his addled mind, forcing him to continue fighting even as his mind wanted to shout '_this isn't real!'_

Natasha grabbed an arrow out of Hawkeye's quiver, a grenade-pointed arrowhead already mounted on it, and jabbed it into her half of the intruder. She leaped in Steve's direction just as he threw the creature off of his body, jumping back as it used its arms like legs to chase him as he stepped backwards to avoid it. Natasha buried a second arrow right into the intruders back.

"Fire in the hole!" Natasha shouted, not even bothering to see if Steve reacted the way he _should _react. She dove into the trench that lay in a circle between the observation chamber and the rest of the fortress, a stopgap measure to slow down any escape attempt from a prisoner held within.

The first thing any soldier learns in boot camp upon hearing those words is to dive for cover, no matter _what _his mind might happen to tell him about the situation at hand. There was no beautiful brunette to rescue by throwing his body upon the two grenades beeping higher and higher as they counted out the detonation sequence. He leaped, the first explosion casting him down into the trench, splashing gore all over his armor as the second arrowhead detonated a few seconds after it, destroying the creature completely. He lay there, stunned, until Natasha's laugh shamed him into getting off the flat of his back and give her a hand to climb out of the hole.

"What the hell is _wrong _with you today?" Natasha said, giving him a high five. "Damn! I don't think I've _ever _seen you fumble that shield of yours!"

Steve crawled out behind her, the stench of burnt flesh assailing his nostrils. There was precious little remaining of whatever the hell they had just prevented from doing … whatever the hell it had been doing in here. By the way his grey alien friend sat trembling in the corner, too terrified to even move, it hadn't been too pleased to see his rescuer arrive. An assassination attempt, perhaps?

"Sorry," Steve apologized, suppressing his instinct to recoil when Natasha gave him a hand up and stepped up to his side, wedging her shoulder under his armpit to provide a crutch as they both limped down the hall to alert the other Avengers the observation chamber was now secure. "It's been a long day."

X

Steve waved away the medic, sick of being prodded.

"I told you," Steve said. "I cut that damned thing in half and it just kept coming at me!"

"Natasha?" Nick Fury asked.

"He hit it good, Sir," Natasha said. "Damned thing _should _have been cut in half. But whatever it was, it was just a man. An _alien _man, for sure. The damned thing was strong as hell and it had blue blood. But it was still just a man."

"That's not what I saw," Steve retorted. "First I took the damned things head off. And then I cut it in half."

"Steve," Natasha said, her blue eyes softening. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Steve groaned. "Stop moving your hand."

"You sustained serious head injuries," the medic said. "We need to move you to the VA Hospital for a CAT scan and observation."

"I have a date," Steve said.

"You're not going anywhere, soldier," Nick Fury ordered. "You're headed to one place. The hospital. Where you're going to rest at _least _six whole days until that souped-up immune system of yours can knit those bones back together and start putting some sense back into that addled skull."

"I know what I saw," Steve said.

He glared at Natasha. Natasha gave him a sympathetic look. The kind of look he'd seen Bernice give the old ladies in the nursing home back when he'd gone to visit Peggy. The ones on the Alzheimers ward who would stop her and ask if she was some movie star from whatever soap opera the old geezers liked to watch about the time he usually arrived.

"How's Maria Hill," Steve asked, realizing insisting he'd battled a headless, half of an alien would only get him a Section 8 and an all expenses paid vacation on the psych ward.

"She's in critical condition," Fury told him. "But the surgeons got the bullet out and pumped her full of antibiotics. The rest is up to her."

"She's one tough lady," Hawkeye interrupted, hovering around Natasha as though he were a mother hen trying to herd a clutch of chicks away from a fox. "I think she's too stubborn to die."

Natasha leaned back into Hawkeye's chest, closing her eyes and sighing as he ran his hand up the side of her arm. Now _this _was the Natasha he remembered from before. The one who acted … normal. Sometimes. Natasha had always been a cold bitch. But at least she'd warmed up around Hawkeye or, even more rarely, whenever she interacted with Pepper Potts. If only he could get the image out of his mind of how she'd stood her ground before the alien intruder, not as the huntress moving in for the kill, but as a usurper throwing down the gauntlet.

Bruce Banner lay on an adjacent guerney, sleeping off his recent activity as his unjolly green friend. From what the others had related during their portion of the debriefing, the Hulk had saved an entire battalion. Bruce, himself, never remembered what his alter-ego did. But somehow Steve thought his mild-mannered doctor friend would be glad to hear his alter ego was slowly learning to differentiate between friend and foe on a larger scale beyond the close interpersonal relationships he forged with his fellow Avengers. Tony Stark had blasted off as soon as they'd secured the facility, ignoring Fury's demands he stay and be debriefed, while Thor had made lame excuses about being stationed to guard the gateway to the Bifrost in New Mexico, near Jane, and promised to allow himself to be debriefed later. _Much _later, Steve suspected.

"If you'll just lay down so we can strap you in," the medic said. "We'll transport you to the VA to get those X-rays and a CAT scan."

"Like hell," Steve said, lurching to his feet and swaying as tweetie birds circled around his head, singing looney tunes and making his head buzz. Pain shot up his leg, the brace the medic had strapped around it more comfortable than the field splint Clint had given him. He forced oxygen into his lungs until his head began to clear. "Clint … will you give me a hand with that other boot?"

"Where do you think you're going, soldier?" Nick Fury asked.

"I told you," Steve retorted. "I have a date."

"Bullshit," Nick Fury said. "Get your ass back in that gurney, now! Before I have you court-marshalled."

_You're not in charge, man out of time…_

Steve looked at Fury, his need to be the good soldier warring with the insistent clamoring in his heart. Duty. And what he needed to _do_.

"I have a date," Steve said. Turning his back to _all _of them, he limped out of the Triskelion, past the enlisted men who stepped respectfully to one side and cheered as he moved past them, and commandeered a vehicle from an all-too-willing National Guardsman.

"Sir…" the medic protested.

"Let him go," Nick Fury said.

X

_Note: So all's good… Right?_

_[hah!]_

_Be sure to leave your comments in the little blue box below. Reviews make my entire day! And motivate me to keep those chapters coming!_

_And for those of you who wondered, the votes ran around 8:10 in favor of keeping Maria Hill alive although, curiously, quite a few of those people said they never really liked her. _


	36. Chapter 36

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Arrows the Wolf, Jelsemium, LEPrecon, Guest, Jhessill, Penny Tortoiseshell, Lucy Park, Adamantium Rose, blown-transistor, angel, garnet86, gryffindorgal87, Pennameboth, feel . that . fire, Mystewitch, pizzagirl, **__and __**IveHeardItBothWays1088.**_

_To __**IveHeardItBothWays1088, **__yes, this is a PG-13 fanfic by necessity. But that doesn't mean I'm not dropping hints of what's going through his head [*snort*]. Fanficnet is now heavily censoring ficlets, so when Steve finally –does- cross that line y'all are clamoring for him to cross, you're going to have to take a little journey over to my Live Journal account to read the un-sanitized version. LOL!_

_To __**feel . that . fire**_** … **_keep wondering… _

_BTW: to 'retch' means to gag and make the sound of vomiting, usually with bile actually rising into your throat, but to stop short of actually throwing up. So for those of you who are confused about how Steve managed to throw up while battling the creature, he didn't. He nearly did, but not quite. Staring down the neck of a headless alien with skanky bluish-grey blood spurting all over your face is pretty gross. I know –I'd- barf!_

_Special thanks to __**Adamantium Rose**__ and __**Guest**__, who both pointed out some bugaboos that could use some polish. Polish polish polish. Gotta keep everything nice and shiny to make my readers smile!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 36

Bernice lay in her bed, trying her best to _pretend _she was going to sleep when her mind kept replaying everything that had happened that night. She had work tomorrow, so she _should _sleep. She _needed _to sleep. The moment she got to work, she had a gazillion ideas to throw out to her engineering buddies to see if any had merit. But sleep eluded her. Until she heard Steve's voice and heard, for herself, that he was okay, the only thing she accomplished by going to her room was making sure she didn't prevent Jacquie from sleeping.

She felt as though she had run a marathon. Exhausted, and yet she felt exhilarated. An electric buzz making her entire body tingle and come alive. As though she were part of a bigger adventure. A superhero sidekick, perhaps? No. She was nothing like this friend Bucky Barnes he sometimes spoke of, his eyes wistful as he described the friend who had fallen to his death. Bernice was many things, but she did not consider herself to be brave. A supportive role, then? Like Abby Scuito in NCIS? Or Penelope Garcia in Criminal Minds? Yes! That was it! She would be the Geek Girl behind the brawn. Kind of like Miss Potts was for Iron Man. Although Miss Potts was _definitely _no geek.

The door buzzer rang. Bernice leaped out of bed, certain it could only be one person. She crashed into Jacquie in the living room, nearly knocking her over.

"Who the hell could _that _be at this hour?" Jacquie groused, rubbing her eyes.

"I've got it!" Bernice shouted, her voice a little too excited even to her own ears. It had been the ring of the telephone she'd been expecting, not the doorbell. But she'd take it! She pounded down the steps, forcing herself to feign calm as she undid the deadbolts to the street. Him! It had to be him! She opened the door casually, as though she really _had_ been asleep, and lost it when she got her first look at him.

"Steve!" she exclaimed in horror. "What happened to _you?"_

He stood resplendent in his armor, glorious even though he was filthy and stank of smoke. He stumbled forward, mumbling something about needing to tell her something, and pinned her to the wall in a hungry kiss. This was not the gentle, artistic Steve she'd been getting to know over the course of many dates, nor even the more exciting side she'd glimpsed when he'd kissed her on Liberty's torch before running off to take on the aliens. This was a stray, hungry dog someone had left tied to her doorknob and rung the bell, emaciated and begging for scraps.

She moaned, her hands shooting around his neck and melting into him, the kiss arousing a happy buzz in her feminine core that screamed '_at last!'_ Adventure was an aphrodisiac, and right now Steve was so strung out on adrenaline that his quaint, 1940's-era moral code that said women should be treated like ladies and men shouldn't press for sex until they were married was dangerously close to getting tossed into the toilet.

She'd better get him inside, quick! So she could have her _way_ with him before he changed his mind…

"I'm sorry," he mumbled when they were finally forced to come up for air. "I had to see you."

He stood, his forehead pressed against hers, panting as though he couldn't get enough air into his lungs as he gripped her face, warming up for another kiss. His eyes were haunted, as though the ghosts of Christmas past had visited him all at once tonight and compelled him to _do something._ Death. Steve didn't fear death, having been dead once already, but he'd damned near bought it twice tonight, and those were just the times she'd seen first-hand. How many more times had he come close to getting killed once he'd disappeared inside the ship, down where she couldn't see him?

He moaned in pain as she gripped his arm, her foot accidentally knocking into his splinted leg. The whimper which escaped his lips was not the bluster of a superhero, but an ordinary man whose frail mortal shell had seen more action in one night than anybody had a right to ask their body to endure. The only reason he didn't fall over was because her position with her back against the wall gave her enough leverage to catch his greater girth before he dragged her down with him.

"Come inside," she said, realizing he'd come straight from the debriefing without first getting medical attention. At least not _much _medical attention. The patchwork of clean spots on his forehead spoke of being dabbed with alcohol, but she doubted he'd tolerated much _more_ than that before he'd jumped into the black Excursion illegally parked crooked in a no park zone and driven himself here.

She propped herself under one arm like a crutch, surprised at how much he weighed as he leaned on her to get up the stairs. He mumbled apologies as she helped him into her apartment, his words making little sense. Jacquie stared wide eyed as she surveyed Steve's armor, her mouth moving into a surprised 'o' as she realized the mystery soldier her best friend had been dating was _that _soldier, months of Bernice's evasiveness suddenly clicking into place. Jacquie crossed her arms across her chest and mouthed the words 'later.' Bernice gave her a sheepish grin, stumbling across the living room like a drunk as she led him into her bedroom. She wouldn't be having her way with _anyone _tonight, but she didn't care. He'd come home to _her._

"I had to see you," Steve mumbled, pulling her in for another kiss. "I couldn't miss another date."

He toppled forward, dragging her with him as he fell upon her bed. Good thing she'd been aiming him that direction, because there was no way she would have been able to stop his tumble, so much more than her did he weigh. He pulled her into his chest, his grip so tight it almost hurt. She realized he was delirious, probably from the purple spot swelling one side of his head. He _should _be in a hospital, but she knew she'd meet with the same resistance whoever else had tried to reason with him tonight had met, so determined was he to get to her to finish their date. It was funny, how much the _reality _of loving a superhero differed from the fantasy, nothing romantic or beautiful about the wounded soldier who lay vulnerable upon her bed.

He'd come home to _her…_

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, so exhausted that the rest of what he said was unintelligible.

"It's okay," she said. She wriggled out from where he'd pinned her beneath his chest, tugging him forward until his feet no longer hung off the end of her bed. All thoughts of being a superhero sidekick flew out the window as she realized what he _really _needed. She kissed him, her kiss tender as she remembered what her grandmother had told her about needing to know she'd had Grandpa Bill and a house full of kids whose lives were _normal_ to come home to at the end of every mission. To remind her of what she was fighting for. How many missions had Steve gotten banged up like this and then gone home to his empty flat? How many missions had he done so back in her grandmother's time, her grandmother too wrapped up in her own worries to give Steve the time of day?

He'd come home to _her…_

"I had to tell you," he said, pulling her tight against his chest as he curled around her, his nature being to protect her even when he was asleep. "I had to tell you that I love you."

Bernice's mouth opened to return the words, but whatever force of will had compelled him to ignore his injuries and drive here to see her tonight expired the moment the words escaped his lips, a content expression coming over his tormented features as he finally finished passing out from injuries and exhaustion. It was a state he probably _should _have been in all along, judging by the look of him. Only his will to finish the mission, in this case to tell her that he loved her, had forced his body to overcome his pain. She caressed the strong line of his jaw that was every woman's dream of what a superhero should look like. In his vulnerable state she could see the echo of the small, thin man he had once been. The artist he'd made certain would be the version of himself she fell in love with and not the super-soldier.

She searched his face for that small, thin man now. The one she had only seen in pictures, lagging behind the other soldiers as he'd gone through basic training and _should _have dropped out, but had refused. It was not the superhero who had come home to her tonight, but that small, thin man who didn't know when to call it a day. Her grandmother had only realized after she'd lost him that she'd had the very thing she'd wanted all along. Not a super-soldier or commander of men. But a sensitive, thoughtful man who put _her _needs above his own. Bernice would not make the same mistake.

"And I love you too, you silly man," Bernice said, her lips brushing his.

God! He reeked of smoke, and sweat, and there was some sticky dark substance splattered all over his armor that she didn't even _want_ to think about what it might be. By tomorrow morning his bruises would be frightful to behold. But he'd come home to _her._ And she was going to make the most of it.

It was a good thing she'd put on her ugliest comfy pajamas before she'd turned in for bed and not the silky lingerie she'd bought in the hopes of seducing him. After sleeping curled up against _that _mess, the only thing the old threadbare flannels would be good for was dust rags. She decided to wait to strip him of his armor, sensing the thing he needed most right now was to feel her as he slept. Content in his arms, she followed his example and drifted off to sleep, dreaming happy dreams of returning to their interrupted perch on Liberty's torch and declaring their love into the sunset.

X

_Note: most soldiers suffer traumatic brain injury after being close to any type of explosion, which is one of the reasons why so many Iraq/Afghanistan War veterans come home with strange psychological and/or physiological symptoms that aren't readily helped by traditional medicine or psychotherapy, including paranoia and hallucinations. When they stick them on a CAT scan or MRI, they find bruising and damage inside the brain where the impact of a nearby IED rattled their brain against the inside of their skull. It's kind of an adult version of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Football and other contact sports players –also- suffer from similar injuries after an impact, which is why you should always play it safe and go to the emergency room if you ever suffer such an impact. _

_Steve's grip on reality has been tenuous ever since the canon exploded next to him and he busted his leg. Not to mention being blasted into the open hatch of the Triskelion and falling down the stairs. Being thrown against the wall by the alien was the –third- brain-scrambling injury he suffered that battle. And then there was the fourth explosion when Clint's arrow blew up as he was jumping into the trench. Poor Steve … at this point he's not certain what is real anymore. No wonder he can't wait to get home to Bernice…_

_Don't forget to leave your comments in the box below! Reviews make me almost as deliriously happy as Bernice is right now._


	37. Chapter 37

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Undapper Thoughts, Kelly Jo, Aireon Maris, Mystewitch, LEPrecon, Adamantium Rose, Katya Jade, Penny Tortoiseshell, GhibliGirl91, Guest, pizzagirl, Neverland123, Arrows the Wolf, **__and__** blown-transistor.**_

_Reader wish list: One banged-up Steve. Tended to by Bernice. Check…_

_(With a tiny bit of intrigue added to advance the plot)_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 37

_Smoke filled the air, the frames of shattered farmhouses little more than skeletons clawing out of the earth. Two tanks clattered behind them as they got their first glimpse of the village they'd spent the last four days shelling. They'd liberated many villages, the cure for Nazi occupation often being nearly as bad as the disease, but usually the locals had enough common sense to flee the advancing Allied forces, understanding their houses could be rebuilt, but to stay while armies clashed was suicide. This village, however, had not cleared out. The scent of cooked meat drew their eyes to the bodies piled high in the village square, a half-hearted bonfire lit to erase the evidence. A warning. A warning that Herr Kleiser had a policy of total surrender. Or annihilation._

"_What happened here?" Dum Dum Dugan asked, his green bowler hat perched precariously on top of his flack helmet, nearly matching the coloring of his face. He pointed to the pile of bodies. "Did –we- cause all these deaths?"_

"_I don't think so, Sir," Gabriel Jones said, the unit's only African American member. "That doesn't look like no damage from bullets."_

_A brigade of soldiers lined up and drew buckets from the well, passing it in a line until the half-hearted funeral pyre had been extinguished. Steve went down on one knee to lead a moment of silence as he said a prayer for those they'd been too late to save. Some of the murdered were children, although if rumors of atrocities against the gypsies and the Jews filtering out of Germany were true, this should be no surprise. He pulled out his handkerchief and held it over his mouth to filter out the stench. Some had bullet wounds, but most bore no sign of injury except looks of pure horror, as though whatever they had seen was far more horrible than being on the wrong end of a stray Allied mortar._

"_What's wrong with their faces?" Bucky asked. "They've got … some kind of holes drilled into their skulls?"_

_The looked which passed between them was haunted. Bucky … had come close. A nervous laugh rippled through the Allied troops even though none of them found this funny. Memory of the –last- village they'd taken back from Herr Kleiser, and the terrified villagers who'd rushed out to greet them, tugged at Steve's memory. Their stories had been so bizarre the brass had labeled the entire village shell-shocked and stuffed their witness reports into some top-secret file, never to be seen again._

"Shape shifters," Steve said. "They said they were shape shifters."

A cool cloth touched his forehead, wiping clean his injuries. He recognized her scent. The scent of Lux soap, a soap he had thought they no longer manufactured. He fought his way through the fog that made him too weak to even lift his own head.

"Bernice," he whispered.

"Shhhh…" she shushed. "Just go back to sleep. I need to tend these wounds so they don't become infected."

At some point she must have removed his armor, because cool air touched his chest where only a sheet covered him now.

"I had to come…"

"I know," Bernice said. Soft lips brushed his. "I love you too."

Too weak to give her anything but a smile, he drifted back to sleep.

X

"_Bucky," Steve cried out. "What have they done to you?" He felt his pulse, afraid for a moment he was too late. It was erratic, but Bucky was alive._

"_Steve," Bucky groaned, his dark eyes fluttering open, no sign of the cocky best friend and soldier Steve had grown up idealizing. His eyes slid shut for a moment, as though he might not make it, but then they opened and recognized Steve was not a hallucination. Not just some comforting thought his imagination had conjured up to help him endure the pain._

"_I've come to get you out of here," Steve said. He tugged at the straps binding Bucky to the table like a sacrificial pig, the crude array of syringes recognizable as a much more primitive version of Doctor Erskine's machine. There had been rumors of the Nazi's committing atrocities against the civilian population, but this was the first time any of them had seen evidence of the strange experiments Red Skull and his army of scientists were committing first hand. There were holes injected into every inch of Bucky's body, but it appeared his attack on Red Skull's stronghold had interrupted the –real- atrocity the scientists had been about to commit. The drill-press which was aimed right at Bucky's head._

"_Go," Bucky whispered, barely able to stand. "Go help the others."_

"_Like hell," Steve said. Shouting and explosions rocked the facility from outside the fortress. The freed 101__st__ Airborne. Fighting their –own- way out. "They can take care of themselves. I came here to get you."_

_He looked past the torture table to the map pinned upon the wall, concentric rings of fortresses emanating out of a single central fortress just outside of Berlin. The military had never valued his eidetic memory. Even Doctor Erskine had labeled it a useless curiosity. The skill of an artist, not the soldier they needed. He memorized the location of the other fortresses, the pattern of expanding rings where –future- fortresses were planned to someday be built. Africa. Asia. The South Pacific. And rings beyond that. South America. Antartica. The American southwest. And a tiny little string of islands just east of Australia… _

_An invasion plan…_

Arguing. But it wasn't an angry argument. More like heated banter. Bernice's voice … and another female. Hadn't Bernice mentioned she had a roommate? Yes. He'd met her once. Asian girl. Black hair with red stripes. He vaguely recalled she'd been here when he'd stumbled in last night. _Had _it been last night? He couldn't tell. It felt as though he'd been asleep for days. Daylight slipped in through cracks in the venetian blinds, so it was morning.

His hand slipped down to feel for injuries and paused as he realized not only had she removed his armor, but stripped him down to his boxer shorts. Color rose to his cheeks as he realized he was in Bernice's bed. He remembered telling her that he loved her, but everything after that was fuzzy. Had they…?

He tried to sit up, causing his stomach to lurch. He closed his eyes and lay still until the bed stopped spinning. No. He didn't think so. Not in _this_ condition. Every square inch of his body hurt. Part of him was disappointed whatever spell had compelled him to come here and blurt out what was in his heart had not shoved him headlong into the intimacy he wished to explore. He was determined to wait until certain she could handle the dark side of his line of work. Nights such as last night, when he got sent into battles where he could be killed, or disappeared for days at a time, could doom their love. He had promised Peggy he would shield her as best he could.

Who the hell was he kidding? Perhaps _she _could handle breaking things off, having survived betrayal once before, but _he _wouldn't. After Peggy had died he'd crawled into a shell and refused to speak. If that was how he'd reacted to losing Peggy, an ephemeral love, never consummated, never spoken, then what would happen if Bernice said 'no thank you' and handed back his heart? In his line of work, distraction got you killed.

The arguing continued, but it seemed more along the lines of why hadn't Bernice told her best friend who she'd been dating instead of anger that he'd shown up at their door. He should go. But the bed was so much more comfortable than the no-frills twin-long he'd picked up for the tiny efficiency flat he'd carved out of the office of the old gym. And the sheets smelled of her. Lux soap. An old-fashioned, no-frills kind of soap that, even after seventy years, was still around. That part of Bernice which idealized her grandmother was just enough to act as a bridge as he stretched his hand across time, balanced on a tightrope above the chasm that threatened to engulf him, cheering him on as he cautiously made his way to the other side.

Besides, even if the room _did _stop spinning long enough for him to sit up, he didn't want to leave...

He drifted back to sleep, the sound of the two females bantering back and forth more beautiful to his ears than the brassy sound of a 1940's dance band, cheerful in its audaciousness.

X

"_I don't –get- it!" Peggy exclaimed, pacing back and forth in front of the enormous map of Europe, staring at the pins Steve had placed from memory. "These locations don't add up."_

_Her eyes came up to look at him and frowned, her lips pursing in disapproval. Ever since she'd walked in on him and that brazen file clerk locked in a kiss, she'd refused to speak to him, challenging every single theory he postulated for the strange behavior of Red Skull and his Nazi collaborators. Red Skull was predictable. He wanted world domination and he'd pull whatever strings were necessary to achieve that goal. Including betraying Hitler. But the actions of the Schutzstaffel, the Nazi SS, did not fit into the battle plans of –either- faction, as though they had their –own- agenda that had nothing to do with Red Skull or the Third Reich. _

"_Perhaps Captain Rogers was mistaken?" General Dwight Eisenhower said. "He did, after all, only see this map once."_

"_I don't know about that," General George Patton said, chomping on his cigar. "The boy seems pretty sharp to me. Don't matter to –me- what these fortresses are for. Only that every base we've gone after had those strange-looking weapons. What did you call them again?"_

"_Ray guns," Peggy snapped, giving Old Blood and Guts a look that communicated it mattered to –her- why these locations had been chosen. "But some of these locations don't make –sense- from a logistical standpoint! It takes a lot of resources to build bases this big, and the Third Reich is too thinly stretched to spare them unless there's a –reason- to spare them. Either Steve was wrong. Or something else is going on here that we're not aware of."_

_Her eyes met his, sitting quietly in the corner, doodling in his sketchbook. She was clueless, really, how he felt about her. Or perhaps she knew? Was that why she'd been so angry when she'd seen him lip locked with the file clerk? Not that he'd initiated the behavior. He'd done everything he could to avoid it except cluck like a chicken and fly up to the top shelf of the bunker, squawking for help. All his life he'd dreamed of being the one sought after, and now that he finally had the good looks to get dames to give him the time of day, the only woman he wanted –still- wouldn't speak to him._

_He shot her a smile, hoping to quell her anger. She was beautiful, the way her dark eyes flashed, lips parting as though she wished to say something, and then suppressed it. His pencil captured the tiny softening of her expression. She was a proud woman, Peggy Carter, and he wished to capture her as he saw her in this moment. Standing in front of a map of Europe. Surrounded by generals. –Her- calling all the shots._

_She turned her back to him, dismissing him with a shrug. Peggy didn't like things that didn't add up. Never had. It was the missing puzzle pieces that always came around and bit you in the backside, she liked to say. The generals had not added the larger ring of future bases he'd described to their map, deeming facilities that did not yet exist as being irrelevant to their battle plans now. He sketched them into his picture of Peggy. Perhaps it would help her make sense of things once she was speaking to him again? At the very least, it would give him an excuse to give her the picture without getting his head bit off._

"Mmmm?"

The sleepy voice drew him back to the much more pleasant dream he'd been having about the goddess spooned into the length of his torso. He snuggled closer, not wanting to wake up in case she really _was_ a dream. She felt warm and substantial in a way his longing for Peggy Carter had never been. Real. He had no recollection of how she'd gotten here, but here she was.

"Hey, sweetheart," he whispered, kissing her ear. It was nighttime again, but there was enough light streaming through the blinds from the streetlight outside that he could make out her face, peaceful as though she didn't have a care in the world.

She wore a silky little slip of a thing, the kind of nightgown a gal might wear on her wedding night, so shimmery and translucent it was more seductive than if she'd worn nothing at all. He pushed back the hair that had fallen across her neck, relishing her little mewl of protest as he disturbed her sleep. She snuggled closer, her backside brushing against places no woman had ever touched. It was a good thing he was too battered and bruised to act on the impulse, or by morning they'd be paying a quick trip to the preachers to make things legal. He wanted to take things slow. To get to know her first before he took that last step which, in his mind, would mean forever.

He ran his hand down her hip, his rough skin snagging on the silky nothingness. What would it be like to wake up next to her _every _morning? It was what he wanted. It was what he had _always _wanted back when he'd still been free to pursue it, back when no woman would give him the time of day. Now that he carried the weight of the world upon his shoulders, would Bernice be strong enough to bear the burden _with_ him?

Peggy had loved her quiet husband. Not just because he'd resembled _him _before they'd turned him into something else_, _but because the man had been strong enough to carry the burden of being married to a secret agent. He hopedBernice was strong, not as her grandmother had been, but like this grandfather she had never met. He looked at her delicate features with fresh eyes, searching not for echoes of his first love, but the quiet, strong man he hoped lived within Bernice's genes. What features had she inherited from him? The rounded jaw? Her cute little nose? Her dainty ears? He caressed her ribcage, close to her small, pert breasts. William Miller had been tall and thin. Perhaps that was where Bernice had inherited her swan-like neck? It was the one aspect of her that was truly hers. A symbol of quiet strength, the way a mute swan appeared fragile until you got clobbered with its wings.

Damn, he was tired! Wincing as burned flesh brushed the sheets, he pulled her close and whispered that he loved her, noting the smile which graced her lips at his tender words, and drifted back to sleep.

X

_The backpack full of explosives weighed heavily upon his back as he ran through the woods, slipping around to the back of the village so he could lay charges before the rest of the 101__st__ Airborne came in, guns blazing, to take out the Schutzstaffel and their second-in-command, Herr Klaiser. The devil himself, some would say. Or at least that was what the French called him. Those few who'd survived. Steve had mopped up one village too many after the bastard had moved through, only traumatized villagers with crazy tales of atrocities left in Nazi commanders wake. _

_A German soldier stood next to a tree, taking a leak. Ambush and kill him? Or delay long enough for the man to finish nature's call and go back about his business? None the wiser a squadron of raiders was slipping through the woods on either side of him, explosives and other booby traps loaded into backpacks to prevent Herr Klaiser from slipping out the rear as the bastard had done every other village they'd tracked him to. The German was easy prey, but Steve had never been especially anxious to kill Germans, even though they were the enemy. He killed when shot at, and not until._

_The clock ticked as the German pulled a cigarette out of his jacket. Steve glanced at his watch, anxious to get to his drop point. Late. The soldier was going to make him late. As Steve weighed the ethics of snapping the soldiers neck in cold blood versus the risk to his men by waiting, the German moved off, headed back to the village from which he'd come. A slacker, Steve was certain. One of the many German soldiers who fought not by choice, but because if they –didn't- fight, the Nazi's would pack up his family and send them off to a concentration camp along with the Jewish population. Or so it was rumored. With the Allied lines advancing through Europe a little more every day, it was only a matter of time before Steve saw first-hand what the bastards had been up to._

_He hurried to the drop point, a group of buildings at the edge of the village that, if properly detonated, would prevent the Nazi's from using the road out of here. He heard a shriek from deeper within the village, the words not in French or German, but English. His heart racing, he slipped into the heart of the village just in time to see one of his men get picked up by the throat as though he weighed nothing at all. The Nazi soldier was taller than the others, the Danziger Totenkopf clearly visible on the visor of his hat. One of the officers. A high-ranking one, by the number of bars on his uniform, but the rest of the insignia was unfamiliar. Not the regular rank and file._

_The Nazi officer turned, dangling the American soldier from his hand as though he were an afterthought. Those eyes. For so long as Steve lived, he would never forget his first look into the eyes of Herr Kleiser, so cold and blue it was as though he stared into the eyes of a spider._

"_You're late," Herr Kleiser said in perfect Boston-accented English. "You're always too late. Or hadn't you noticed that, Captain America?"_

"_I'm sorry, Sir," the soldier choked out as Herr Kleiser's loosened the fingers wrapped around the man's neck just enough to let him speak. Kawalski. Steve recalled the private's name was Kawalski._

"_Don't hurt him!" Steve shouted, his hands held out in front of him to show he meant no harm. "It's me you want. I'll order the others to leave!"_

"_You're not in charge, little man," Herr Kleiser laughed. With a twist of his wrist, he snapped Kawalski's neck as casually as though he rolled a blade of grass between his forefinger and thumb. He threw the soldier to the ground, the man's body twitching even though Steve knew from the sickening crunch the man was already dead._

"_Bastard!" Steve shouted. _

_Herr Kleiser pulled a pistol and shot Steve right in the heart. Steve fell backwards, grunting in pain as he gave a silent prayer of thanks to Howard Stark for giving him bullet proof armor. The armor stopped the bullet from piercing his skin, but it –still- felt as though somebody had just pounded him in the chest with a baseball bat. Gasping for breath until his lungs finally got the idea they were supposed to –breathe-, he stumbled to his feet and unstrapped his shield from his back, made of some meteor alloy nobody had ever encountered before. Herr Kleiser was already instituting his escape, nearly all the way to the other side of the village square. Steve lined up the shot and aimed his shield straight at Herr Kleiser's head. The shield floated across the square like a Frisbee, knocking Herr Kleiser forward and, he would swear to God until the day he died, cleaving the man's head right off the bastard's neck. _

_The German soldiers surrounding Herr Kleiser froze, not certain what to do. Steve shot at them, alerting the rest of the 101__st__ Airborne the timeframe for detonation had just been moved up. All around him men erupted out of trenches and from behind bushes, where the French Underground had been helping them line up the offensive to take the Nazi bastard down. Explosions erupted from backpacks strategically placed around the village, blasting cottages to smithereens and littering the road with so much debris the Germans had little hope of escape._

_His attention was drawn to the pile of rubble where Herr Kleiser's body had fallen. A visage rose from within the flames, black smoke obscuring Steve's view just enough to not be able to make out the figure who stood in its midst. Hair stood up on the back of Steve's neck as he realized he couldn't see the man's face. In fact, he couldn't see the man's head at all! An illusion caused by the smoke and tears streaking out of Steve's eyes?_

_The figure raised one hand and snapped its fingers. Steve couldn't say –why- he suddenly felt a sense of horror, but whatever was causing it, he could feel the sensation deep within his bones. Another explosive detonated in the purgatory where the figure stood, obscuring Steve's view. All around him, German soldiers stopped what they were doing and dropped dead. Not one of them had a mark from enemy fire. When Steve looked back, the figure was gone._

"_What the hell just happened?" Bucky asked, running up to where Steve stood, his shield dangling from one hand._

"_They all just dropped dead!" Dum Dum Dugan said._

"_I ain't never seen nothing like it," Gabriel Jones said. "And I've seen a lot of weird stuff." He pointed to the dead German soldiers. "It was like … voodoo or something."_

_He searched the rubble where he'd seen Herr Kleiser fall, but they found nothing. Nothing at all. The smell of smoke filled his nostrils. It smelled like…_

Toast?

Light streamed through the venetian blinds. The door opened and Bernice glided in, the odor of coffee and burnt toast wafting in behind her as she carried a makeshift tray into the room. Steve forced himself to become fully conscious, noting his injuries didn't seem as severe as they had before, his souped-up metabolism helping him heal far faster than any ordinary human. He'd wallowed long enough in his beloved's bed. It was time to let the poor girl go about her business before he wore out his welcome.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Bernice said, sitting down at the edge of the bed with a smile that would melt an iceberg. "Are you going to wake up today?"

"How long have I been out?" Steve asked, struggling to disentangle himself from the blankets and sit up. The room still spun from the thwack on the side of his head, but only a little.

"Three days," Bernice said. "I was really worried about you. But Mr. Fury said to just let you sleep it off and you'd probably heal all on your own. For a while there you were beginning to scare me. I think you might have been delirious."

_Shapeshifters…_

If his recollections from the recent battle were accurate, and he was by no means sure that they were, the tales told to him by the French villagers had been _real. _Whatever that thing was he'd battled, he was certain he'd cut it in half. Just as he'd been certain he'd taken off Herr Kleiser's head, and then the bastard had stood up in the flames and snapped his fingers, causing all the German soldiers to drop dead. In light of what they now knew about the Chitauri, Natasha was right about one thing. The thing he'd battled on the Triskelion hadn't been human. His alien friend had tried to warn him when it had drawn pictures of a slug with dozens of pincher-like arms that he feared something was coming for him. He needed to get back there and interrogate the creature before it ended up dead, too.

"You spoke to Nick Fury?" Steve asked.

"He came by," Bernice said. "As well as Doctor Banner. They … um … explained … uh…"

She looked at the place where his arm had suffered third degree burns, now almost completely healed. By the end of the week, there wouldn't even be a scar. Already the scars had faded from his face. They sat in silence a long moment, her hand small and warm in his larger one.

"I just heal faster than most people," Steve said. "That's all. I can be hurt as badly as any other guy."

Bernice glanced up, her cheeks flaming red. Steve wondered what _else _she'd seen. Or how much he had babbled in his sleep. She fluffed a pillow and placed it behind his back. He realized the sheet had slid down, exposing his chest. Bernice did not stare at him as Peggy had done, but averted her eyes, glancing at him through veiled lashes. Three days. They had spent the last three days intertwined in each other's arms, an intimate position usually reserved for husband and wife. Was _that _why she felt awkward?

"It's … uh … kinda burnt," Bernice said, pointing to six not-too-charred slices of toast. "Mr. Fury said you were going to be ravenous when you finally woke up. I'm … um … not that good of a cook. I'll go make … uh …"

"Stay?" Steve pleaded, capturing her before she could escape. Her nervous energy reminded him of one of those little Australian herding dogs. _Him _being the sheep that needed to be corralled. She glanced back at the doorway, then at him, torn between whatever duty she felt compelled to finish and her desire to stay.

"Okay," Bernice said. "It would be cruel and unusual punishment to burn your toast and then expect you to eat it without _me _being forced to eat it with you. It's … um … kinda cold."

She crawled up beside him and stuck her feet under the covers, cold little piggies that begged to be warmed by his larger frame. They each grabbed a triangle of toast, black crumbs littering her sheets as they crunched in silence, taking turns smearing each other's toast with orange marmalade and sharing swigs of coffee until the last slice had been devoured. She had been right. He _was _ravenous.

"I feel like I'm in that movie," Bernice said. "Nacho Libre. It's about a priest and a nun who don't want to break their vow of chastity. So one night they eat toast together. It's about as close to … uh … you know…"

Steve pulled her into his arms, devouring her lips and kissing her senseless until he was finally forced to come up for air. She gave up squirming after the first thirty seconds, melting into his arms.

"I can assure you I have taken no such vow," Steve said, nibbling down her neck until she squealed with laughter. He pulled her tight, avoiding pulling her _too _close so she wouldn't feel the evidence of his baser urges pressing against her thigh. She snuggled into his arms, her head resting upon his chest as she listened to his heart beat. She then asked the question he knew she feared to ask, her voice fearful and small.

"Did you mean what you said?"

"Yes," Steve said. "I did." He kissed her, her touch against his bare chest causing him to growl. "Here I was getting shot at and beaten up by aliens, and all I could think of was that I hadn't had a chance to tell you that I love you."

Bernice held his face between her hands, her dark eyes scrutinizing his features.

"You lost weight while you were asleep." She caressed his cheek. "I can see the resemblance now to the pictures my grandmother had of you. They didn't change you at all."

"I came out of the ice unscathed," Steve said.

"No," Bernice said softly. "I was talking about the machine. They didn't change you when they put you into that machine. I realized when you came here three nights ago that _that _was the man I fell in love with."

A lump rose in his throat. Ever since they'd turned him into a super-soldier, he'd always felt as though the body women lusted after belonged to someone else. Was stolen. That it was forbidden to use for anything except the mission because it wasn't _his._ Bernice was the only woman to ever look beyond the super-soldier and see the thin little asthmatic who still resided within. Not even Peggy had –_seen-_ him for who he really was until he'd been dead and gone

"Come here," he said. They snuggled until the smoke alarm went off and there was a series of small explosions.

"Your eggs!" Bernice exclaimed, jumping out of bed and running out into the kitchen. She grabbed a fire extinguisher to put out the pan which had caught on fire after the water boiled out, causing the hard-boiled eggs to explode. The entire apartment reeked of sulfur and smoke.

Steve lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes, relishing the sound of Bernice bustling about the kitchen. Her cries of dismay as she fretted about his ruined breakfast. The reek of sulfur that, now that he got a good whiff of his _own _body odor having not showered in three days, was probably an improvement. The strangled chirp of the smoke detector as she gave up trying to silence it and finally ripped out the batteries. If this was what it meant to live a normal life, he would take it. Oh, God, would he take it!

X

_Note: The dream sequence about rescuing Bucky Barnes was taken straight out of the Avengers movie. The dream sequence about the soldier Herr Kleiser killed and then Steve lodging his shield into the creature and wondering why it didn't die came from Ultimate Avengers, although I didn't include the rest of that episode as it doesn't fit in with my plot._

_I've had readers point out they think it odd Bernice can't cook. Point A – Bernice isn't perfect … I have to give her SOME flaws. Point B – my BFF is a superwoman mega-successful business owner who likes to entertain … and whose cooking we all dread. Everybody I know makes it a point to stop at the Burger King strategically located near her house both before and after all dinner invitations and to BYOB food. Point C – keep reading. You'll see why I painted Bernice with this flaw in a few more chapters._

_Drop me a review if you have a chance. Reviews make me happy!_


	38. Chapter 38

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Undapper Thoughts, LEPrecon, Guest, Mystewitch, Qweb, Afternoon on a hill, Penny Tortoiseshell, Katya Jade, gryffindorgal87, Kelly Jo, Arrows the Wolf, **__and __**blown-transistor.**_

_Special thanks to __**Guest **__who pointed out General Douglas McArthur never really involved himself much with the European theatre and that General Dwight Eisenhower would have been a more historically accurate choice of a general to have in the bunker with Peggy Carter. I have changed the previous chapter to reflect that fact._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 38

"Doo-do. Do-do-doo-do!" Bernice sang, flapping her dish rag at the open window as she tried to coax the last of the smoke-filled air out of her apartment. In the background, the big-band oldies station she'd tapped into via the internet blared '_Take the 'A' Train_,' the brassy sounds of Duke Ellington filling the apartment as she cleared the aftermath of her little egg mishap. _Most _of her egg mishap. She stared up at the ceiling, pieces of dried yellow egg-yolk visible against the white paint. She was going to have to scrounge up a ladder to get _that _down.

"Would you like me to get that for you?" Steve leaned against the doorway to her bedroom, a little worse for wear, but glorious in all of his hunkiness wearing nothing but plaid boxer shorts and a bruise that ran from his ankle almost all the way up to his knee.

"Steve!" Bernice said. "You're supposed to be in bed!"

"I've been asleep for three days," Steve said, giving her a grin. "Could you tell me where the little boy's room is?"

Duh! The first thing _any _person wanted to do after rolling out of bed in the morning was take a wee. She realized she was staring at the tent in his boxer shorts instead of his face and blushed. "It's … um … right there."

Steve hobbled towards the door she'd pointed at, pausing to catch his balance next to the easel with the masterpiece she'd painted of him posed on the still rings in his gym. Thank goodness she'd had the sense to throw a tarp over it! Now _that _would be embarrassing if he saw she'd been lusting after that gorgeous body of his after all! Not that it was the _only _thing she liked about him. Not by a long shot! She'd meant what she'd said when she'd realized it was the sensitive, artistic side of him she'd fallen in love with. That didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the gift wrapping that package came in!

"That's a lovely nightgown," Steve said, color rising to his cheeks as he tried his best to look at her face instead of the outline of her nipples just barely visible through the silk. "Where did you get it?"

"Victoria's Secret."

"Victoria has a secret?" Steve asked.

"No. It's a store. Victoria's Secret."

"If Victoria has a secret, why would she want to alert everyone to that fact?" Steve asked, his forehead furrowed in confusion.

Bernice burst out laughing. The strains of Duke Ellington grew louder as the brass instruments rose to a crescendo, a perfect backdrop to his cluelessness. She glided over to give him a hug, amazed at how hard and taut his waist felt as she stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his surprised lips.

"Get in there, you!" Bernice ordered. "Before I show you _exactly _what Victoria's secret is!"

She wedged her shoulder under his armpit, stabilizing him enough to finish walking across the living room without needing to hop. Steve lingered at the bathroom door, pausing to taste her lips.

"Do you mind if I take a shower?" Steve asked. "It's … uh … I think maybe I'm a little ripe?" One hand came up to rub the three days of razor stubble he was sporting. Not a terrible amount. With his fair complexion it looked more like peach fuzz than the beginnings of a beard. But she had never seen him with so much as a missed whisker on his chin so she could tell it bothered him.

"Pink razor is mine," Bernice said. "Just be careful you don't fall over and bang your head in that old-fashioned tub. You're too big for me to pick up. It's a good thing I got you as far as my bed before you passed out or you'd have spent the last three days sleeping in my hallway."

Steve's expression grew serious. "I didn't mean to … um … sorry. I didn't mean to … um … burden you this way."

"You came home to _me,_" Bernice said, taking his face between her hands and searching his eyes. She gave him a kiss, more tender and less teasing. "You can show up on my doorstep any time you want and I'll still love you. No matter how banged up you get."

Steve nodded, whatever emotion she could see running through his eyes not finding words to express it, so he chose to remain silent. She was learning to interpret those silent looks and the body language which accompanied them instead of waiting for him to find words for emotions he was often unable to verbalize. Especially if he was nervous. If pressed, the words that _did _come to mind often came out differently than he meant to say them. Nor would she put words in his mouth, having discovered that when he finally _did _express what he felt, usually by his actions instead of his words, the end result was _so_ much more gratifying. He disappeared inside the bathroom, the soft click of the door handle a letdown.

Bernice glanced down at her pretty nightgown. So much for seduction! Until Steve was good and ready to _be _seduced, he would not allow himself to be tempted. But judging by his passionate confession three nights ago, Steve had a whole ocean full of emotions locked up, waiting to see the light of day, and it wouldn't be long before he decided one way or the other whether he was going to let her crawl so deep into his heart he'd never be able to let her go.

Sigh. Nothing like a whole heap of unresolved sexual tension. She'd better see about getting them both something to eat besides the eggs plastered all over her ceiling!

Bernice glanced at the clock. It was almost noon! Jacquie was only working half a day today so she could catch a train to visit her family for Thanksgiving. The _last _thing Bernice wanted to explain to her smut-minded friend the reason they were both still in their pajamas because of some exploding eggs! Somehow, she didn't think Steve was quite ready to experience Jacquie's depraved sense of humor. At least the smoke had started to clear out, her apartment frigid from the cold November air.

"Doo-do!" Bernice danced around her kitchen to strains of _'In the Mood' _as she set the table for two. _This _time, she was going feed him something foolproof. Wheaties. And a glass of milk. If she couldn't put _those _on the table to feed him, she might as well trade in her paintbrushes for a nun's habit!

The door buzzer rang. Bernice groaned. Speak of the devil! As usual, Jacquie was too lazy to dig out her key. Bernice danced across the living room, still humming along to the radio, and hit the buzzer, dancing right back to put the finishing touches onto an artfully arranged napkin folded to resemble a swan. Hey … she had to have _some _talents. The door swung open. She looked up to tell Jacquie she didn't want to hear it when she froze.

"Mike."

Bernice stared down at the table set for two, and then her slinky negligee. She grabbed her bathrobe and yanked it on, rushing towards the doorway to herd him the hell out of here before Steve came out from his shower.

"M-m-mike," Bernice stammered, dismayed when he didn't step back _out _the door he'd just walked in without knocking first. "W-what are you doing here?"

"Bernice," Mike said. "I had to talk to you. I'm really worried about you."

"Concerned … about … me?" Bernice asked.

Mike grabbed her by the shoulders, his expression intense.

"I've been doing some digging into that guy who's been chasing after you," Mike said. "You're not going to like what I have to say."

Some part of her consciousness registered the sound of running water stop. She needed to get Mike the hell out of here before he jumped to the wrong … um … anyways … the not quite right … yet … conclusion. She didn't want anything to do with him anymore, but she didn't want to hurt him by rubbing his face in her new relationship, either.

"Oh?" Bernice said, stepping towards the door. She opened it and stood next to it, hoping he would take the hint.

"The people I work for keep track of people who don't belong in this country," Mike said. "You know. Wetbacks and stuff."

"Wetbacks?" Bernice repeated. Mike had always had an annoying tendency to blab racial slurs like 'spic' and 'nigger,' prejudices she had chosen to ignore back when she had still been living with him. But the slurs grated on her now like a bow saw on a cello string.

"Zionists," Mike said, grabbing her shoulder and shaking her. "The senior partners keep track of anyone with suspicious ties. They have … resources."

"Resources?" Bernice repeated, deciding to take a less subtle approach and holding one arm out to gesture out towards the hall. She prayed Steve would shave and do whatever other beauty routine superheroes did every morning to remain drop-dead gorgeous and didn't come out until she'd gotten rid of Mike.

"You don't understand!" Mike exclaimed. He grabbed both of her arms, pressing them to her sides so hard it hurt. "That guy who's been chasing after you? Until last year, he didn't even exist!"

"You've been checking up on my friend?" Bernice asked, her jaw dropping.

"Yes!" Mike said, shaking her. "He's using a recycled name and social security number from some guy who's been dead for seventy years! And that gym he owns? It's some sort of front! I haven't figured out what yet, but there are gang rappers going in and out of there all times of the day. It _has _to be a training area for terrorists!"

"I don't think so," Bernice said, her tone offended. She tried to pull free of his grasp and was unable to break his hold. "Mike, I think you should go now."

"According to his bank records," Mike said, ignoring her request. "All of a sudden two million dollars just appeared in his account out of nowhere. And then he plunked down a cool million and a half for that old gym. The place has been for sale for fifteen years. No buyers. It's in a lousy neighborhood and it was overpriced. But according to the realtor, he just walked in off the street with a duffel bag full of cash and bought it on the spot. He didn't even try to negotiate the price down."

"That sounds like Steve," Bernice laughed.

"Listen," Mike said, his eyes tormented. "If you're in trouble, you can tell me. The people I work for. They can help you. They can help you get into the witness protection program or something."

"Mike," Bernice asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you get it?" Mike exclaimed. "He's a terrorist. A private detective saw him rent a boat the night terrorists attacked Governor's Island three nights ago. And then … get this … they found the boat anchored off the island the next day!"

Bernice burst out laughing. "Mike … you've got it all wrong."

"You stupid woman!" Mike shouted, shaking her so hard it brought tears to her eyes. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

"Is there a problem, Bernice?"

Bernice looked up to see Steve standing in the door to the bathroom, his chest glistening with drops of water, nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. It had to hurt like a bastard, but Steve strode across the living room with barely a limp to stand at her back, one arm wrapping around her collarbone to pull her back against his torso in a universal male gesture of '_my woman.'_

Mike stood there gaping, his eyes darting from her slinky lingerie, to the table set for two, to Steve standing bare-chested in her living room wearing nothing but a towel. He leaped to all the _right _wrong conclusions.

"I think perhaps you should leave," Steve growled. It was not the sensitive, artistic man who stood at her back now, but the super-soldier. The one who'd taken down an alien armada. The alpha male. Steve might _wish _he still had the freedom of that small, thin man. But he'd been a soldier for many years now. A soldier who'd defeated more horror than anyone could imagine. Mike recognized the deadly weapon they had turned him into when they'd trained him to shoot Nazi's and put him into that machine, instinctively stepping back towards the door. Bernice followed Steve's lead and leaned back into the protective shelter of his arms, one hand reaching up to touch his forearm in a universal female gesture of '_my man.'_

"You're in over your head, Bernice," Mike said, anger clouding the dark features she had once thought were handsome. "You'll see."

Mike stormed out of the apartment, the door to the street slamming so hard she was afraid the glass would break. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, sinking back into the comfort of Steve's arms.

"What was that all about?" Steve asked.

"Testosterone poisoning," Bernice sighed. "Ancient Chinese proverb. You go out with new guy, old guy shows up at your door and wants you back. Or something like that."

Steve nuzzled her ear, his arm tightening across her collarbone as he pulled her in tighter for a hug.

"Old guy can't have you," Steve growled in her ear and then nibbled down her neck. He paused when his lips got to the tiny indentation where her collarbone met her neck and gave it a nip, marking his territory in a most _un-gentlemanly _show of territorialism. "I don't share."

Possession. It was nice to know Steve's tendency to be a gentleman only went so far. In fact, this side of him was downright exciting! She turned, only her slinky nightgown and the tiny towel wrapped around his waist standing between them. His pupils were so large his eyes were nearly black, the blue iris appearing only a thin frame around the deep emotions that swirled within. Only the thin veneer of a gentleman kept his baser impulses in control. A control she knew she could break with just a single touch.

The doorbell rang again. Steve froze. It rang a second time.

"I'll take care of this!" he growled. Steve had never showed a propensity to have a temper, but by the way his hand clenched in a fist, Bernice had no doubt 'take care of' would not be limited to words if Mike didn't take a hint and leave her alone.

"No … Steve," Bernice said, placing a hand over his chest. "It's alright! He thinks … he did some digging into your background and thought you were a terrorist when things didn't add up. Let me get rid of him before he does something stupid. Like call the police and blow your cover."

A low growl emanated from his throat as she peered into the tiny door camera.

"Are you going to let me in or what?" Jacquie snapped, her red and black hair all mussed from the wind. "It's freezing out here!"

"It's Jacquie," Bernice said, giving Steve a look of relief. "It's just Jacquie. She's due home early from work today. Because of Thanksgiving."

One handsome blonde eyebrow rose on that gorgeous brow as he did the math and realized just how many days he'd been asleep.

"Tomorrow," Steve said. A look of what Bernice could only deem apprehension crossed his face. "I'm supposed to meet your family tomorrow." He glanced over at a calendar she had plastered on her wall. "Shoot! I was supposed to go back to the Triskelion and debrief two days ago."

Bernice nodded, her heart sinking as she remembered the promise she had made to Nick Fury in exchange for bringing Doctor Banner here to make sure Steve was alright. She had promised to send him on his way the moment he woke up and not let him linger as Fury bemusedly commented Steve might wish to do. Whatever had happened inside that ship, S.H.I.E.L.D. was clamoring to find out what Steve knew. Only Fury's insistence Steve would fare better in _her _hands than recovering in a military hospital, where the powers-that-be would want to awaken him every time he stirred to drill him for information, was keeping the government from showing up at her apartment with an ambulance and carrying him out of here. She turned back towards the buzzer, Jacquie fuming at the delay in ringing her in, and hit the button. Jacquie bounded up the stairs.

"It's about time!" Jacquie groused. She took one look at Steve, giving him a blatantly appraising look as she looked from his face, down his chest, and further still down to his tiny towel. She flashed Bernice a shit-eating grin. "Never mind! I'll be out of your hair in a just few minutes. Let you two lovebirds get back to whatever you were doing when I so rudely interrupted you."

She scurried into her own bedroom, laughing as she grabbed the suitcase she had packed earlier, threw a few toiletries in a handbag, and burst out of her room, disappointed when she saw Steve had disappeared into Bernice's bedroom and come out fully clothed in the outfit Nick Fury had left here for him to change into once he woke up. Damn! Talk about your bad timing!

"Have a nice Thanksgiving," Jacquie said, giving her a wink. "And bye, Steve! It's nice to finally meet you. If you break Bernice's heart, I'll cut your balls off and feed them to you!"

With a wolfish grin made all the more predatory by her red and black striped hair, Jacquie disappeared out the door as quickly as she had come, leaving only awkwardness in her wake.

"She's … uh … protective?" Steve said, back to his usual gentlemanly self. He stepped towards the breakfast she had so carefully laid out for him. "Wheaties? How did you know I liked them?"

Bernice gave him a smile she did not feel. Sammy Davis Jr. came on the golden oldies station, singing '_What Kind of Fool Am I.' _A song that only could have come into existence _after _Steve's generation.

"It's the only cereal I could find that's almost as old as _you _are," Bernice said with more sharpness than she meant to convey. "Would you like me to make you some more toast?"

"Only if we eat it together," Steve said, giving her his most deliberate, clueless grin. God. He was beautiful when he smiled. How could _any _woman stay pissed off at that beautiful smile?

Over soggy Wheaties, tepid milk, and beautifully folded napkins, Bernice told him about the patterns she had noticed in the way the alien gliders moved and her theories about what those patterns might mean. Steve had trouble grasping the concept of a video game, but once she started comparing the movement of the Leviathan to a war horse, he sat on the edge of his seat, peppering her with questions. For some reason, she had hesitated to tell either Doctor Nyi _or _Nick Fury what she had witnessed when she'd called in sick, a small, cautious voice warning her to talk to Steve before she revealed that information. Steve urged her to wait until he finished his debriefing and had a chance to question his alien friend. As an employee of Stark Industries, Tony Stark would demand first dibs on whatever knowledge was inside her head, but Nick Fury might do an end-run around her boss by taking her into protective custody. Bernice got the distinct impression Steve wasn't sure _who _to trust.

With a perfect, gentlemanly kiss goodbye that only hinted of the emotion he had shown her when he'd shown up on her doorstep three nights ago, Steve promised to pick her up at 11:00 tomorrow morning to drive her to have dinner with her family and headed into his other life to finish up the debriefing he'd abandoned to be with her. Bernice shut the door behind him and pressed her forehead against the door.

Damn!

She sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the sketches she had made as she'd told Steve about the pattern made by the ships. Something hit her on the head. A spider? Squealing like a little girl, she frantically shook her hair until whatever had hit her fell upon the table. Laughing hysterically, she stared at what had startled her so.

Dried burnt egg!

X

_Note: In Marvel canon, Bernie Rosenthal's former boyfriend Mike Farrel joined a group of white supremacists. The theme of two comic books was anti-Semitism, which has little to do with my plot. Instead, I have expanded Mike's personality to be a racist in general._

_Don't forget to drop your comments in the little comment box below! I'm sure there's a lot of UST out there right now _


	39. Chapter 39

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including_ _**Marianne Silver, blown-transistor, pizzagirl, Penny Tortoiseshell, Mystewitch, Arrows the Wolf, Qweb, LEPrecon, Katya Jade, **__and__** GhibliGirl91.**_

_Special thanks to __**Penny Tortoiseshell, **__who pointed out a truly embarrassing booboo in my dialogue in the last chapter. Thanks! All fixed now!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 39

"I'm telling you," Steve said. "I know what I saw!"

"The camera doesn't back up your version of the story," Nick Fury said. "Natasha said it looked like a man, only stronger, and that is what the video camera saw."

"It wasn't obvious until _after _the thing shot at me, Sir," Steve said. "That was when I cut its head off with my shield."

"But we don't have that on camera," Nick Fury said.

"The camera malfunctioned after that," Steve said.

"Which leaves us with _your _word," Nick Fury said. "A soldier who suffered a concussive impact to the brain and, by his own admission, was having trouble focusing. Against Natasha's. Whose version of incidents _both _times you accused her of being less than forthcoming were backed up by a video camera."

"I know what I saw," Steve said, throwing his arms up in exasperation. It wasn't often he back-talked a superior. But there were all kinds of things going on here that he didn't understand, but knew in his gut weren't right.

"Son," Nick Fury said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "How many times did you get tossed around by enemy fire that night? Two? Three?"

"Four," Steve said. "I was within range of three explosions, plus this." He pointed to the still green-and-yellow bruise on one side of his head that still made him feel like he was floating out of his body. The result of having his head slammed against the wall by that … thing. If not for his helmet, he'd be dead. Not even _his _enhanced physique enough to survive getting your skull smashed open like a watermelon.

"Listen," Nick Fury said. "I know Natasha's reaction times were off for a while after her accident. I'm not downplaying your concerns. We all noticed she wasn't right. But she's been cleared by every doctor this base has, and her reaction times have been fine for the last couple of months. Isn't it time you put it to rest?"

_Shapeshifters…_

"I know what I saw!" Steve said. "If you dig up those old mission reports from that French village I told you about, you'll see I'm not the _only_ person who's ever swore they crossed paths with a human who turned out to be a bug."

"I already did," Nick Fury said. "Something you said when you were delirious at your pretty little girlfriends house the other night triggered a memory. One of the veterans who served under me in the Vietnam War served under you in the European theatre. Gabriel Jones. Career military. Said he'd heard some crazy shit during the Second World War. Stuff that could never be proved. I put in a requisition for the case file of every mission you covered in France and no such file came up. Atrocities … yes. But no reports of villagers reporting something that looked like a bug disguised as something else."

Not surprising. The brass had buried the witness reports of traumatized French villagers telling stories about brain-sucking, shape-shifting aliens. Some big shot politician in Washington had accused the 101st Airborne of falsifying evidence to cover up their _own _atrocities. Collateral damage. French villagers who'd fought on the side of the Germans, but whose family members who hadn't been there swore they would never have betrayed their own countrymen. By the time the brass had finished investigating both sides of the story, Steve had moved on to win dozens of other victories and the brass buried the entire incident. Letting sleeping dogs lay.

"What about that village where we nearly cornered Herr Kleiser, Sir?" Steve asked. The brass hadn't buried _that _report. He hoped.

Nick stepped over to the table he liked to use instead of a desk, one of those metal folding numbers you could find in any office or cafeteria in America. He pulled an old case file out of the stack and plunked it down in front of him, the thick brownish cover a stark contrast to all the newer, thinner manila files piled upon his desk.

"I'll leave you to refresh your memory about what you, yourself said about that mission," Nick Fury said. He stepped towards the door to leave him alone to review the file and paused. "Listen, Steve. I know things have been rough for you. Getting plucked out of one century and plunked down in another, all of your family and friends dead and gone? I can't imagine what that must be like for you. It's why I covered for you when you disappeared to shack up with that pretty girlfriend of yours. But this? Natasha's a valued member of this team. I can't have you alienating her. Not without proof."

"But…" Steve protested.

"Get me some _proof, _son," Nick Fury said, giving him that look that reminded Steve of a librarian peering over her reading glasses out of his one good eye. "Otherwise, I'm going to have no choice but to pink slip you and send you in to find out what else got shaken up in that brain of yours. Natasha's not the only one complaining about this little vendetta you have against her anymore."

"Clint," Steve said.

"Not just Clint," Fury said. He waved both of his hands to show he wasn't going to answer any more questions and pointed to the ancient case file Steve held in his hands. "Why don't you refresh your memory about what you, yourself said about that village you're insisting was something else, now? And then if you've got anything else to say, I don't want to hear it. Not without _proof. _Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Steve said.

Fury shut the door behind him, leaving Steve to stare at a case file that had weathered a hell of a lot worse than _he _had over the last seventy years. What was written didn't surprise him. Steve had thought he was going crazy when he'd seen Herr Kleiser stand up in the flames after he could have sworn he'd taken off the man's head, snap his fingers, and the German soldiers dropped dead. So he'd omitted that part of the story. He'd testified as though he were describing a game of tiddlywinks, how he'd wounded Herr Kleiser and initially thought he'd killed him, but then he'd seen him get up and walk away. Even back then, fear of being Section Eight'd to the Psych Ward had kept many in his unit from telling any story the brass might find unbelievable. They'd all learned their lesson from the first French village that had told such crazy tales.

He placed the file back on the stack and wandered out to the Special Operations locker room, where the other Avengers were discussing their plans for Thanksgiving dinner. The room grew silent as he walked in, Natasha giving him a look of pity. Clint had her back, as always. Thor looked away. Bruce Banner made small talk, asking how his injuries were healing, and gave him a quick update on Maria Hill. Some of the lower-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives, B-team members who were rarely lauded or thanked for putting their lives on the line, wouldn't look Steve in the eye. Word was getting around he was going bonkers. Fury was right about one thing. Before he made any more accusations, he needed _proof._

He forced himself to act like nothing was wrong. To smile at the others and crack jokes about needing more time to recover because he'd been slammed into the wall one time too many. To look Natasha in the eye and pretend distrust wasn't gnawing at his gut, whispering crazy insinuations in his ear. The others cleared out, anxious to get home to their families for a well-earned holiday, leaving him alone in the locker room. Not even the busted lock remained on his locker to remind him of what he had seen.

He looked up and realized Tony Stark had remained behind.

"How's that family of mice?" Steve asked.

Tony stared at him, his dark eyes filled with an expression Steve couldn't quite read, and then looked up at the camera which monitored the locker room, surveillance cameras being such a part of life in their line of work that they usually forgot the thing was even there. His cheek twitched, a subtle tic Steve had noticed when the flawed superhero had a lot on his mind. His dark eyes were intense with emotion.

"I've got to get home to oil my armor before the next mission," Tony said. "There's this spot … right here." He pointed to where the arm joint would be on his suit. "Been giving me trouble. Maybe it's time I took a look at that design my old man cooked up and see if he still has anything to teach me about how to design a suit that moves naturally under battle conditions."

Tony stared at him, waiting to see acknowledgment Steve understood the cryptic message.

"Banner ordered me put out to pasture for the rest of the week," Steve answered.

Tony Stark nodded. He finished shoving his boxing gloves into his duffle bag and glanced at his own visage in the mirror, slicking back his hair and straightening his collar. He strutted towards the door and shot Steve his trademark cocky grin.

"Meet and greet your old flame's family to explain your interest in your new flame," Tony said. "Dicey. It sucks to be you."

And then he was gone, leaving Steve unsure whether to be angry at his nemesis for making light of his apprehension about meeting Bernice's family tomorrow, or relieved the mice still gnawed at Tony Stark's gut. He stared at the names taped onto the lockers. All good soldiers. Every one of them. And the names that were missing. Sticky residue the only sign some soldiers had not survived the recent attack. And the cameras that monitored every move they made and reported it all back to … who?

Stark was going to contact him in the next couple of days to compare notes about _something. _In the meantime, it was time to pay a visit to his alien friend…

The Triskelion was a ghost-ship. Regular National Guard had been added to patrol the exterior of the ship. Between the number of casualties S.H.I.E.L.D. had suffered when their PsyOps team had been infiltrated, those killed in battle, and those anxious to touch base with family and remind themselves why they even tolerated putting up with the kind of crap the government asked them to subject themselves to, there were a lot of new faces on the ship. He glanced up at the cameras which had been replaced after the explosion, only the singed paint, which would be repainted by the end of the week, marking something terrible had happened in this room. His alien buddy was seated on the bench as always. Passively calm. Hands placed over his knees. Quietly observing the activity that went on around him.

"Hey, buddy," Steve said. He walked over to the stack of art supplies and fished out some pencils and paper. "You in the mood for a little coloring?"

The Chitauri stood up and moved towards the center of the cell. Steve noted how watchful the creature was, even when he was trying not to be obvious about it. Like a prey animal that was used to being low-man on the food chain. It was a curious behavior for a seven-foot tall alien whose strength dwarfed that of an average human. It glanced over to the technician assigned to monitor it. Steve tried to open the little portal to slide the paper into the chamber. It did not open.

"Sorry about that, Commander Rogers," the technician said. A fresh-faced kid who couldn't have been any more than 22. "The system has been buggy since before the attack. Poor guy went hungry until we figured out what was wrong and found somebody the computer recognized to open the portal. _Still _can't get the door open."

Steve stared up at the cameras. The cameras that had strategically stopped working just as he'd cleaved that alien bastard's head off. Why would the system recognize some people, and not others?

"Has Agent Romanov been in to interrogate the prisoner?" Steve asked.

"Damn computer has a mind of its own," the technician said. "Only recognizes certain people. Director Fury. Doctor Banner. One of the guards. And me. Mr. Stark was the one who finally figured out it was just being fickle and rigged up an iris scanner so we could make do until they finish cleaning this place up from the aftermath. Can't say whether it will like you or not, Sir. But you're welcome to give it a try."

Steve stepped up to the small camera mounted next to the computer terminal, the Stark Industries logo clearly visible on the tiny piece of equipment. He looked into it with one eye, an infra-red scanner momentarily blinded him, and then the machine chirped and flashed a green light. Behind him, he could hear an audible click on the portal to the cage.

"See," the technician smiled. "It likes you."

"You said it was like this _before _the attack?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," the technician said. "It was the damnedest thing. At first it only rejected Agent Romanov. But during the attack the entire system shut down. Wouldn't admit anybody. Good thing, too. The surveillance footage taken during the attack shows that alien dude came in and tried to hack in before Agent Romanov got here and stopped him. And then you got here and it all went to shit."

"Can I see that footage now?" Steve asked.

"Sorry, Sir," the technician said. "Director Fury forwarded it to the brass in DC. Was none too pleased, either. Somebody's head is going to roll for designing a system where all three cameras went down at the same time."

The kid was chatty. Not field agent material. But by the ease with which his fingers danced over the keyboard, pulling up vital statistics on the alien and monitoring things without even looking as he spoke, S.H.I.E.L.D. needed the kid badly enough to keep him buried in a lab. The alien appeared to be at ease around the kid, one Steve had seen here many times before helping out Bruce Banner. What was it Bernice called the lab rats she worked with? Geeks? Yes. The kid was a geek. Agent Coulson had been such a geek. And yet he had surprised them, putting them all to shame when their egos had gotten the better of them. Even _his _ego.

"What's your name, kid?" Steve asked.

"Jones," the kids said. "Rick Jones. I'm Doctor Banner's intern."

The kid flashed him a grin that didn't have a worry in the world despite the fact he was in the middle of a fortress, standing next to an alien in a cage, all in a room which had recently had alien-guts splattered all over the ceiling. And the kid found it absolutely exhilarating. Thank god for geeks! It was easy to hide a Chitauri time-delay in the behavior of the strong, silent type, but there was no hiding the odd cluster of behaviors he now understood was a pattern behind the squirrelly, too-eager-to-please behavior of a bona fide geek. Steve thanked the kid for his help and got down to business.

The alien took the paper and gave him a thumbs-up. Or more precisely, one of his middle fingers. Technically, since the creature had six fingers and more than one of those fingers could be used the way humans used a thumb, there _was _no middle finger. It lumbered down to the floor, sitting cross-legged, and immediately began to sketch. The drawings were still crude, but Steve could make out the concentric rings of his shield. Humans were drawn as stick-figures, but the creature drew _two _oval, bug-like creatures standing next to him. Not one. The Chitauri looked up at him, his greyish forehead furrowed in concentration, then took the pencil and drew hair on top of one of the bug's heads. Steve wasn't sure if the creature recognized Natasha was a different gender than he was, but it _did _appear to recognize she wore her hair longer than the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Steve got the message. He looked the creature in the eyes and gave him a subtle nod. The creature looked up at the camera and did _not _give him a thumbs up. It pushed the paper out the tiny portal, got up, and moved back to its bench. Sitting in the passive position it _usually _sat in. Seated. Hands on its knees. Trying to convey it was no threat.

Steve folded the picture and put it in his pocket. Let Nick Fury ream him out later for 'forgetting' to hand in the picture for analysis. There was one person whose judgment he _did _trust, especially when it came to art. And he intended her to be the recipient of a work of alien art.

Thanking the technician for all his assistance, he punched out and headed home, resisting the urge to head over to Bernice's apartment to spend the night instead of his own, lackluster flat. He reminded himself he had a business to run. A responsibility to his gym clients and the gang kids that filtered in to spend the time someplace other than out on the street, to talk to an adult just tough enough to earn their respect, but straight enough to guide them to make good choices in life instead of blindly following the gang. Rodriguez could only handle so much.

Or at least that was what he told himself. The real reason was that he knew damned well the next time he curled up next to Bernice, it would be to consummate their love. Unless the next mission broke every bone in his body, there was no way in hell he was going to be able to resist the little siren.

And he didn't want to…

X

_Note: The intrigue thickens. Will Steve get an all-expenses paid trip to the loony bin? Or will –someone- figure out there are layers of 'something don't smell right?' And most importantly of all … will Steve be forced to prove how much he loves Bernice by eating her homemade green bean casserole in front of her entire family?_

_Be sure to leave a review! Criticism, comments, or wishes, I like to hear them all!_


	40. Chapter 40

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list and pushed up all those happy little 'reader' statistics. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**blown-transistor,**_ _**Justsuzaku, lazarus73, Kelly Jo, LEPrecon, rozisa, gryffindorgal87, Arrows the Wolf, pizzagirl, PoetTraveler, Penny Tortoiseshell, Katya Jade, Qweb, **__and__** Mystewitch.**_

_For those who might have missed the meaning of Tony Stark's cryptic message, if you recall, when Steve asked Tony why he'd stuck Bernice down in the weapons laboratory, Tony pulled out the picture Bernice had drawn of Steve wearing Iron-Man type armor, but with the increased arm and rotator cuff movement of Steve's armor designed by Howard Stark. I won't say more as you'll just have to see what Tony has to say in an upcoming chapter._

_Several readers commented it troubles them Nick Fury appears oblivious to the pending threat of Natasha. If you re-read the last chapter, you'll see that isn't the case. Fury took the time to dig up all of Steve's old mission reports looking for evidence backing up Steve's claim he'd encountered such things back in 1945. He didn't find any. The witness reports from the French village disappeared, while Steve's own testimony omitted the incident in the second village because he, himself, recognized without hard evidence people would think he was crazy. The video thus far has backed up Natasha's story, not Steve's. Numerous doctors examined Natasha after she was injured, finding no evidence she is an alien. Fury has not discounted Steve's concerns. He's warned him that making accusations without-proof- is causing him to lose the trust of the people he must lead …._

_It's kind of like when your best friend introduces you to her charming new boyfriend and your subconscious immediately screams 'stalker.' You don't develop those kinds of instincts until you've been personally burned._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 40

Steve stared at the nondescript house in the middle of a Jersey suburb with as much apprehension as he would an invading army. Cars littered the street, although it was hard to tell if they were here for the Miller clan, or the house three doors down that appeared to have a similar family gathering. Even through the closed doors, the ruckus of far too many people jammed into a modest house and the occasional cheer, as though the clan were spectators in a coliseum, filtered all the way out to the street. Logistics. The way any seasoned soldier approached _any _pending battle was to come prepared. This _was _Bernice's family, after all. And for the first time, he was going to meet her father. He felt for the small, reassuring bulge in his coat pocket, armed with all the ammunition he needed for at least _one _potentially fatal question he anticipated needing to answer today. The dreaded question _every_ suitor for a young woman's heart expected from her father.

'_So … what are your intentions towards my daughter…'_

Bernice scurried to the back of the Excursion, muttering to herself as she rifled through the bags. Steve stretched his leg and winced, still wearing the brace. Banner had x-rayed it and said the fracture had already begun to knit back together. It was more inaction causing the muscles to seize up from a too-light exercise regimen and irritation at the limitations imposed by the brace itself than actual pain that bothered him now.

"And this one," Bernice said, handing him a shopping bag full of potato chips, "and this … and this … oh … and can you carry this one in, please, too?"

"How many bags of chips did you buy?" Steve asked.

"Um … a lot?" Bernice said, looking sheepish. "Not that … um … you noticed but … um … I'm not exactly the best cook."

The new, improved, 2012 version of Steve was now savvy enough to understand this innocuous-sounding statement was a trick. A mine field, where any step in the wrong direction would result in painful, dire consequences … to him … if he gave the wrong answer. If he said yes, he would be confirming that the woman he loved was, indeed, a terrible cook who, only yesterday, had started a fire in her kitchen which had resulted in exploding eggs. But if he said no, he would lose her trust. She would not use him for a sounding board whenever some problem troubled her pretty mind, dooming their relationship to failure because they would never speak about anything meaningful. Answering a question about a beloved's cooking skills when there were other solutions to the problem, such as Chinese takeout, was akin to a kamikaze run on an aircraft carrier. In other words … romantic suicide.

Steve decided his best course of action would be simply to keep his mouth shut and distract her. He pulled her into his arms and gave her a kiss. He might have a propensity for putting his foot in his mouth every time he opened it, but he'd ticked off Peggy enough times to learn when _not _to open his mouth. Which was why he was often so tongue-tied around women. A silent tongue didn't speak words which could get you in trouble.

"How much do they know about me?" Steve asked.

"You mean, other than the fact I'm bringing a cute guy to dinner?" Bernice asked, affectionately reaching up to rub off the lipstick she'd just planted on his cheek. Her expression grew thoughtful. "I don't know. I've been kind of evasive. Most of them think the same thing my grandmother led _me _to believe. That you're the grandson of an old friend stationed with the National Guard."

"I don't like telling lies," Steve said.

Bernice gave him a wistful smile. It was a fine line he walked, being grateful for how much Peggy had added to his life, even though they'd never evolved into being more than friends, while loving Bernice, who he had initially been attracted to due to her resemblance to Peggy, but whose personality was very different from that of her grandmothers. Bernice was curious about that side of her grandmother she hadn't known, yet a little jealous about the fact he had loved her. If _he _were in her shoes, he'd be apprehensive, too. But where he used to search for similarities between the two women, he now found himself searching for differences, to prove to himself he wasn't simply playing a cruel game. If there was _anybody _in the world who would challenge him on his insistence he was _not u_sing Bernice to satiate his grief over losing Peggy, it would be the family who loved the both of them.

"You'll do fine," Bernice said.

She grabbed an ominous-looking casserole out of the back seat and headed straight towards the house, Steve trailing behind her like an overladen pack mule. They were assaulted the moment they stepped in the door by a matronly aunt and a whole gaggle of children who were nieces, nephews, cousins, or second-cousins. Their names blurred into a mindless jumble as Bernice led him through a living room so packed with people watching a football game there was barely room to thread his way through to the kitchen to put down his packages.

He came face-to-face with a man who was familiar. Abraham Steven Miller. Peggy's eldest son. The man who had pulled the strings to summons him to Peggy's side the last months of her life. Steve looked into his eyes and knew that Bernice's great-uncle _knew._

"Mr. Miller," Steve said, shaking his hand.

"Steve," Abraham said, his expression neutral. "Welcome to my home. It's good to see you again."

"And this is my little sister, Naomi," Bernice said, introducing a young woman who was the spitting image of Bernice, only with dirty blonde hair instead of black. "And my brother, Caleb. And my cousin Lisa. And Aunt Kamala. And Uncle Tom. And these are the twins, Amy and Amber. And Aunt Vera … she's the boss around here."

"Oh … you," Aunt Vera said, snapping a towel at Bernice. "Come. Come. Let us get to know this fine young man you've brought with you today."

Steve could tell by the welcoming look in Abraham's wife's eyes that she did _not _know who he was. Or didn't care. The former, he suspected.

"More like brought to feed the lions," Bernice's brother Caleb said, rolling his eyes. Caleb appeared to be around a year or so younger than Bernice. Steve had met him briefly at Peggy's memorial service, but he hadn't realized the young man was Bernice's brother.

It felt as though he were caught up in a tide, being propelled without effort or thought towards a formal living and dining room which had been set up with a series of mismatched tables, chairs, and tablecloths lined up through the two rooms, with the ones in the center being a mighty tight fit as they jammed through the French doors so all of the adults could fit on a single table. Within the two rooms, smaller tables, including end tables and a coffee table, had been set up with lawn chairs, sofa cushions, and a variety of other implements in a series of 'kids tables' grouped by age. Bernice kept leading him through the tide until he came face-to-face with a narrow-faced man with an absolute hawk of a nose and Bernice's raven-black hair.

"Papa!" Bernice said, throwing herself into the man's arms and giving him a hug. The man planted a kiss on Bernice's cheek and then turned to examine him, his expression curious. "Papa … I want you to meet Steve."

"Bernice has done nothing but say good things about you," Taavi Rosenthal said. "It's good to finally meet you."

"Sir," Steve said.

"And say … and say … and say," Bernice's little sister Naomi tattled, rolling her eyes. Naomi may have _looked _like Bernice, but her personality reminded him more of Bernice's best friend, Jacquie.

Bernice elbowed her sister in the ribs … hard … and turned flaming red.

"What _kinds_ of things did Bernice say about me?" Steve asked, deliberately taking the bait. He gave Bernice his most innocent smile as daggers shot out of her eyes at her little sister.

"Well she said you were cute, for one thing," Naomi said, giving Bernice a coy look that was only missing sticking her tongue out at her to be complete.

"Did you really fight aliens?" an eight-year-old boy asked.

"How did you break your leg?" a little girl, around seven, asked.

"Are you really friends with Iron Man?" twin sisters Amy and Amber asked in one voice that was more of a fan girl squeal than speech.

Without his even realizing it, he'd been herded to a seat close to one end of the table and coaxed to sit down. An enormous bowl of potato chips was plopped down on the table in front of him, the younger members of the Miller clan instantly descending upon the bowl like locusts and devouring them before the second bowl could be set down. The reason for the copious number of bags Bernice had brought with her. He glanced at Bernice and noted her knowing grin.

"We're … um," Steve stammered. "We … uh … um … are you guys going to get really angry at me if I tell you it's classified?"

"Oh, pooey!" Caleb snorted. "You sound like _them!"_

Steve looked down the lengthy table at _them._ The eldest generation. Four elderly men and one woman who watched every move he made as though sizing him up. Peggy's children. Four of the elders viewed him with open curiosity, not fully in the loop about who he really was. But the fifth elder, Abraham, was watching him like a hawk. Neither welcoming, nor hostile. Steve felt the way he had felt when Peggy had watched his every move, marking down notes on a clipboard as he'd gasped his way through Army boot camp, always lagging behind the other soldiers.

"Enough of that," Taavi good-naturedly told his son. "You know the scoop around here. Grandma Peggy liked to keep her secrets."

"Here, here!" several of the middle generation exclaimed, raising glasses of beer, or wine, or colorful mixed drinks. Although nobody had announced dinner was about to be served, there was a sudden influx of people herding around the tables. Bernice had disappeared, leaving him to the mercy of her relatives.

"It's half-time," Taavi Rosenthal whispered, giving him a wink. "Gotta eat that turkey, quick. Before the game starts up again."

"Oh," Steve said. He'd never been a huge sports fan, but he liked football about as much as any other guy of his day had liked it. It had been a much more local event back when he'd still followed the teams, not the showpiece people followed now. Baseball had always been more his sport. The kind of game a poor kid from Brooklyn could play in a vacant lot with a rock and a stick if no other equipment was available.

"And look, everybody," Aunt Vera said, plopping down the casserole Bernice had wrapped in towels and made him turn the heat up on high in the truck the whole way over her. "Bernice brought her famous green bean casserole!"

Aunts and cousins placed dozens of disparate casseroles upon the table, the event appearing to be more of a potluck dinner to feed a crowd rather than a traditional formal dinner where one hostess was responsible for doing all the cooking. The eldest generation grouped at the head of the table, next to Abraham and his wife, while the kids and teenagers were scattered on the smaller tables littering the two rooms. They were seated at the opposite end of the main table, furthest from the elders. A slight?

"How come _you _get to sit at the big people's table this year, Bernice?" cousin Lisa whined. "Too good to sit with us now?"

"Steve is too tall to sit at the kids table," Bernice laughed. "He'd have to balance his dinner plate on his knees."

"I brought _my_ girlfriend," one of the male cousins complained, pointing to an attractive African-American female. "How come _I _don't get to sit at the big people's table?"

"Because you're a _nerd_," a young cousin, around age twelve, said. He made a face at his cousin. His cousin made a face back. Definitely both teenagers. The girlfriend looked mortified.

"Because Mesi is my BFF!" Lisa said. She raised her hand and gave the girlfriend a high-five.

"They're just letting her sit with them this year because she's got a boyfriend," Naomi said.

"They didn't let her sit there when she was dating Mike," Lisa said.

"That's because Mike was a jerk," a male cousin said. "Grandpa Abraham wanted to put him back into his place."

"And skanky," another, teenaged female cousin said. She gave Steve a flirtatious look. "Not cute like this one is."

Abraham Miller carried out the biggest turkey Steve had ever seen, a good twenty-four pounds, and after many ooh's and ah's, began to carve the slain fowl with the deftness of a world class chef. The family dug into the casseroles, piling their plates high with the bounty of the past years labors. The cover came off of Bernice's green bean casserole. It occurred to Steve how much it resembled the shapeshifter Natasha had blown up with one of Clint's arrows. _After _it had been splattered all over the ceiling. Bernice beamed like an academy award-winning actress at the Oscar's as her aunts and uncles lauded her on her presentation.

One of the aunts stood across the table from him, armed with the biggest, most lethal-looking serving spoon he had ever encountered in all the army slop-kitchens he had visited in the European theatre, an enormous smile upon her face as she scooped out a spoonful and plopped it down upon his plate.

"You're just going to _love _Bernice's green bean casserole," the aunt said. "Great Aunt Vera taught her to make it herself."

Steve glanced all the way up the lengthy table, so long it took two rooms, from his modest position at the very foot of the table, a tenuous position he had secured for his beloved at the 'big people's table' only by virtue of the fact she had brought him here, right into the proud eyes of Abraham Steven Miller's wife, the matriarch of this clan now that Peggy was gone, and Bernice's own grand (and not great-grand as Peggy had been) grandmother. Peggy's daughter Margaret. He could feel the expectation in the room as Abraham said a prayer of thanksgiving and remembrance of great-grandma Peggy who'd died this past year, and then a lusty 'amen' as the Miller clan dug into their plates.

Steve stared at the green bean casserole…

The green bean casserole stared back at him…

Any second now, he expected eyestalks and pinchers to erupt from the thing and then he'd have to take cover, guns blazing, to protect Peggy's progeny from all things alien and horrifying as he'd promised her before she had died. One of the cousins at the kids table behind him snickered, whispering a comment about Bernice's cooking. Bernice stared at him with a proud grin, as though she were feeding him filet mignon.

"Mike always _hated _your green bean casserole," Naomi laughed, giving Steve a sympathetic look. "That's just because he was such a jerk."

Steve picked up his fork, glancing at the table which had paused to watch him take his first bite of Bernice's cooking. He stuck his fork into the greyish-green concoction with some sort of slimy white substance smeared around it that looked like puss, the entire thing covered with an unknown crunchy substance. He'd fought Nazi's. He'd battled aliens. Brave. He had to be brave. Giving the Miller clan a weak smile, he placed his fork in his mouth, trying not to grimace as soggy canned green beans burst onto his palate, blending with the too-salty flavor of canned soup and French fried onions as the entire mouthful disintegrated into mush.

Bernice gave him a smile that was so breathtakingly beautiful it made his heart skip a beat. A lump caught in his throat as, he could swear to god, pinchers clawed at his windpipe on the way down. He swallowed. There. He'd done it. He'd eaten Bernice's green bean casserole. Now, no matter what else happened, the Miller clan would know he truly loved her.

He noted the approving glances, including Bernice's father Taavi and her great-uncle Abraham, the de facto patriarch of the Miller clan. He'd done it. He'd passed his first test. One of many, he was certain.

"Would you like some more?" Bernice asked, already digging into the nefarious concoction to give him a second scoop.

"Not yet," Steve said, holding out his hand. "I've got to try a little bite of every single casserole on this table or I might slight one of your aunts."

"Oh … of course," Bernice said. She dropped the deadly spoon and grabbed one from an adjacent dish. Sweet potato balls rolled in corn flakes. A dish which, at least, recognizably originated from planet Earth. He allowed her to plop the orange, golf-ball sized concoction onto his plate.

"What does your family usually do for Thanksgiving, Steve?" the aunt who'd originally served him asked, making small talk.

"My father died when I was four," Steve said quietly. "And my mother died when I was seventeen. The Army is my family, Ma'am."

Halfway up the table, Bernice's father gave him a sympathetic nod. Bernice had lost her mother to cancer when she was twelve, the reason she'd grown so close to her great-grandmother, who'd been the only one with enough time on her hands for the grief-stricken Bernice.

Things lightened up after that, most of the dishes pleasurable to his taste buds, including one spicy ethnic dish that made his eyes water. He was relieved to see Bernice's green bean casserole disappear before he would be obligated to consume a second serving or, heaven forbid, be forced to take the dish home and reheat it as leftovers. Only in a combat zone mess hall had he ever seen so many people descend upon a feast and devour it in so little time.

"The games back on!" one of the cousins shouted.

And just as quickly as they had descended upon the table, the Miller clan vacated it, crowding back around the television in the den and rooting while the New York Giants took on the Green Bay Packers. Bernice beamed at him, her eyes filled with pride.

"They like you," Bernice said. She reached across the table to squeeze his hand.

"Thank god," Steve said. After _that _trial-by-fire, he would certainly hope so!

X

_Note: for those of you who like green bean casserole, all I can ask is … are you part of the alien invasion? All hate e-mails will be forwarded to S.H.I.E.L.D., where men-in-black will appear at your door to see if you are a threat to national security or harboring eyestalks beneath your lovely complexions! LOL!_

_Don't forget to leave a review in the box below if you have a moment!_


	41. Chapter 41

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list and pushed up all those happy little 'reader' statistics. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Adamantium Rose, AlyyKatt13, Marianne Silver, Shakespeare's Lemonade, FelixFelicisIXXCI, Qweb, Almyra, Kelly Jo, Penny Tortoiseshell, Katya Jade, rockobrocko, GhibliGirl91, total-animal-lover, KimchixBurger, Jelsemium, Guest, lazarus73, blown-transistor, Mystewitch, LEPrecon, **__and __**Arrows the Wolf**__. _

_Lots of reviews that last chapter! There's nothing like a shared traumatic experience of being forced to eat green bean casserole at a family function to get people's muses flowing! _

_Here's a note __**Jelsemium **__suggested which I thought you'd all enjoy:_

To: Pepper Potts  
From: Steve Rogers

I swear I will defend Tony with my life and even put up with his foul mouth if you will please, please, PLEASE arrange for Bernice to take cooking lessons. It doesn't have to be fancy, just edible.

PS - I will also be your personal flying monkey for life if you lead her to  
believe that the cooking class is your idea and don't let her know that I had anything to do with it.

_# # #_

_LOL! Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 41

"Captain Rogers," Abraham Miller said. "If you have a minute?"

Steve looked up from the group of kids circled around him as he related a not-too-heavily edited tale about what it had been like to battle the aliens who had descended upon New York City. Omitting, of course, the fact that _he _was the commander of what the media had labeled 'superheroes' and not simply one of the many lowly enlisted soldiers who had supported their efforts. The kids, and quite a few adults, hung on his every word as he described staring down an alien glider, using his hands to accentuate the way the glider had drifted through the air. He was enjoying himself. Or at least he _had _been enjoying himself until the patriarch of the family uttered those ominous words.

Shooting Bernice an apprehensive look, he finished up the tale and rose, leaving the young ones begging for more. It had been Bernice's _father _he'd expected to have this conversation with, not her great-uncle, but duty called. It was clear the man who had been named after Doctor Erskine was the one the rest of the Miller clan looked to for direction. Abraham pointed to a small room at the back of the house.

"Mr. Miller," Steve said, schooling his expression to remain neutral and polite the same way he would speak to a commanding officer. He did not correct him that his rank was now _Commander _Rogers, a rank akin to colonel or brigadier general, not merely Captain.

The door clicked behind him. Abraham walked to stand before an enormous painting of Peggy mounted above one of those fake mantles designed to look like a fireplace. Although Abraham Miller had inherited Peggy's eyes and darker coloring, he was far taller and thinner than Steve assumed was from Peggy's side of the gene pool. He could see the echo of William Miller in the man. Abraham's no-nonsense demeanor, however, was Peggy all the way.

"How much does Bernice know?" Abraham asked, getting right to the point.

"Everything," Steve said. He decided to qualify that statement. "Almost everything. Your mother made me promise to shield her from the ugly reality we had both seen. Some things … the Nazi's … I don't see the need to tell her the details her unless she asks."

Abraham nodded. He looked up at the painting of Peggy, a much older version of the woman Steve had loved. Matriarch of the clan, at the height of her vitality, yet younger than when Steve had finally been released from the ice.

"I never really _knew _my mother until the last decade of her life," Abraham said. "She had … secrets. Things she would refuse to discuss even with my father. Ugly things she wanted to shield us from. As if she could! We weren't stupid, you know? Every kid in the neighborhood knew my mother was a secret agent."

This was surprising. Peggy had been under the assumption her efforts to shield her children from her work had been successful. Steve was silent, waiting to hear what else Abraham had to say.

"There's a six year gap between me and my next younger brother," Abraham said. "As the oldest … I saw things the others didn't. Things they probably don't want to know."

"Like what?" Steve asked.

"Like the way my parents would fight," Abraham said. "They tried to do it in private. But the house we lived in was a lot smaller than this house is now. I heard things."

"About Peggy's work?" Steve asked.

"About _you!" _ Abraham snapped. He walked over to a picture placed beneath the mantle. A picture of Peggy and William Miller on their wedding day. William looked deliriously happy, an enormous grin on his face. Peggy looked … wistful. She was looking away from her new husband, her eyes fixated at some point in the distance.

"I was not … here," Steve said.

"Yes," Abraham said. "You were! You were _always_ here. Standing between them as though you were a brick wall. She wanted to name me Steven Abraham, you know? Not Abraham Steven. My father put his foot down on _that _one."

Steve gulped. This was a whole bucket of worms he hadn't been anticipating.

Abraham put the picture down and picked up the one he'd seen before of Peggy's husband. A tall, thin man who'd been a milkman … and an artist. A man who had kept the family running while Peggy had been off slaying demons.

"I idealized her," Abraham said. "We all did. It was as though _she _were our father, and our father was our mother. We all wanted to be just like her. And we wanted to be just like _you._ The hero she would tell us about whenever we'd gather around her and ask her about her work._"_

"Your mother loved your father," Steve said. "She loved him dearly."

Abraham touched the picture of his father.

"She loved you more," Abraham said.

Steve stood silent. What could he say? It wasn't true? He had no idea what had gone on in the Miller household in the 67 years he'd been frozen. All he knew was that, over time, Peggy had grown to love her quiet husband and let go of _him._ A man who was dead and gone.

"I loved your mother," Steve said. "But she wouldn't give me the time of day."

"I don't believe you," Abraham said, his dark eyes flashing in a look that so eerily reminded Steve of Peggy, it made a lump rise in his throat.

"We were never more than friends," Steve said. "If we'd had more time … after the war … I don't know. There was _something_ there between us. But she was a superior officer. And the Army had strict policies against fraternization between the troops. So we always held back. _Both _of us held back."

He hadn't intended to hold back much longer, Army regulations or not. Had he come back from that last mission alive, that ring would have been on her finger. Consequences be damned!

"I used to fantasize _you _were my father instead of William," Abraham said. "What kid doesn't want a superhero for a dad instead of some lowly milkman? And my father knew it!"

"We never…"

"Don't you think I know that?" Abraham said. He gestured around to countless pictures of his family growing up. In every single picture, Peggy had a wistful expression, as though her thoughts were someplace sad. "But you were _here._ As surely as if you and she had been having an affair!"

"I was dead," Steve said. "Or so we all thought. Including me."

"Which made it all the more worse," Abraham said. "Because the bloom never faded off the rose! How do you battle the memory of a perfect, dead hero?"

"I'm sorry," Steve said. This was an argument he could not win. "I'm sorry I came between your mother and your father. But it was not my fault."

"I know!" Abraham exclaimed, throwing his arms up in exasperation. He grew quiet and thoughtful, moving to stand beneath the portrait of his mother.

"Every January 12th," Abraham said. "She would put on that red dress of hers and go out onto the town alone. It would upset my father, because it was the anniversary of the day they had met. But she did it anyways. I could never understand why."

"It was the day my ship went down in the artic," Steve said.

"But why?" Abraham said. "We could never understand why."

A lump grew in Steve's throat.

"I loved your mother," Steve said. "But she would never give me the time of day. Always pushing me to be more. To be better. To push myself beyond even what the experimental serum had done to my metabolism and be … heroic. It was never good enough. Not until the day I had to choose between saving my own life or downing that plane into the ocean so the Eastern seaboard wouldn't get wiped out."

Abraham was silent.

"My best friend asked her to dance once," Steve said. "Right in front of me. She turned him down cold. Told him she'd only dance with the right man. She was wearing that red dress."

"My parents met in a dance hall," Abraham said. "On January 12th. Three years after you'd died. She was wearing that red dress, he said. He found out later it was the only day of the year she would ever wear it. My father said she told him she was waiting for someone special. But she looked sad. So he hung around and told her about some art he was working on. She told him that he reminded her of someone she had once known. An artist. So she decided to dance with him after all. They got married three months later."

Steve nodded. Peggy had told him the story of how she'd met her husband.

"As I aimed the ship into the ocean," Steve said, his voice choking up. "And I told her there was no other way. She asked me to meet her for a dance. At the Stork Club near the base. She was crying. So I told her I would find her. She said she would wear that red dress because it had always made her stand out in a crowd."

Abraham nodded, as though Steve had finally lay to rest a ghost he could never quite understand.

"I don't think I would have been quite so brave," Steve said, "to put that plane down into the water and end my own life, if I hadn't had your mothers' voice on the other end of the radio telling me that at last, I had finally measured up."

"My mother was like that," Abraham said quietly. "She set a very high standard for us all."

Steve nodded. Silence stretched between them. A quiet fellowship of two men whose personalities Peggy had shaped.

"My only regret about dying," Steve said. "Was that I never got that dance. It was the last thought I had when the ice took me, and the first thought that came into my mind when I woke up 67 years too late."

"I think that's why she prevented us from going into any line of work that would be dangerous," Abraham said, his posture relaxed now. "I wanted to join the army and be just like _you._ She wouldn't let me. Or my brothers. She knew some heavy hitters, and she pulled strings every time one of us tried to enlist to get us rejected."

"Your mother always knew what strings to pull to get what she needed," Steve said.

"Yes," Abraham said. "She did."

Outside the room, a cheer could be heard as the Giants beat the socks off of Green Bay.

"Peggy loved your father," Steve said. "It was all she ever talked about once I came back. How much she was looking forward to seeing him again in heaven."

Abraham's eyes drifted over to newer pictures. Pictures of the extended Miller clan. Including quite a few pictures of Bernice and her siblings even though they were Margaret's grandchildren, not Abraham's. His posture shifted, arms crossed in a defensive stance Steve recognized.

"Bernice is very special to us," Abraham said. "Her father lives just two blocks over. After her mother died, Taavi was too wrought up with grief to be a proper father for those kids. Don't get me wrong! He did the best he could! But he took sanctuary in his work and left those kids to fend for themselves. Margaret and her husband live down in DC, so they weren't around enough to be much help. The kids ended up over here most of the time. I took Caleb under my wing. Vera spent time with Naomi. And by that time Mom had gotten frail enough that we'd moved her in here with us. Bernice … she gravitated to my mother."

Steve nodded. Some of this he knew.

"I just worry," Abraham said. He looked away. "Bernice's father should be asking this question, but he doesn't have any idea who you really are. What are your intentions?"

"I intend to marry her, Sir," Steve said. "If she'll have me."

Abraham stared at him, as though Steve were confirming something he'd already suspected.

"I think that's what my mother wanted," Abraham said. "I had my apprehensions about giving Bernice those scrapbooks my mother asked me to have her pass along. Afraid …"

He paused and looked over to another picture that was on the wall. Peggy. Standing in front of a map of Europe. Surrounded by four-star generals. Calling all the shots. A photocopy. Most likely hung right back in the same spot the _original _Abraham had sent back to him had hung for all these years. This had been _Peggy's _room while she'd lived here, Steve realized.

"I guess I had no reason to worry," Abraham said.

Steve breathed a silent sigh of relief. Bernice's uncle wasn't going to do anything to prevent him from making their union a permanent one.

"I'll shield her as much as I can," Steve said. "I won't always be able to do it. My work … if anything ever happens to me…"

"We'll be here to help her pick up the pieces," Abraham said. "But don't shield her so much that she doesn't understand why you can't always be there for her. Mom made things worse by keeping my father out of the loop. We figured a lot of it out. But things would have been easier if she'd just told us the truth."

Steve's eyes were drawn back over to the photocopy of the picture he had drawn. Peggy. So confident. Her concentration intense as she worried over the location of fortresses which made no strategic sense. A map Steve had taken great pains to draw as accurately as possible because that would be his excuse to give her the picture. The map showed not only the existing fortresses as the real map had done, but also a second and third string of installations the generals hadn't included because those installations had not yet been built.

_An invasion plan…_

His eyes were drawn to a tiny string of islands he'd drawn next to Australia. Two 'x' marks were drawn through two tiny islands, both of them active volcanoes.

They'd only rousted a base from _one _of those islands...

"Holy…" Steve said. He looked up at Abraham Miller. "We've had the invasion plan in our hands this whole time and we never knew it."

He lifted the picture off the wall. He noted the puzzled expression on Abraham's face. Bernice's uncle had just signaled he was going to take a chance on him. It was Steve's turn to return the favor.

"You'd better hang on to this," Steve said. "If anything happens to me, I want you to get this picture to Bernice's boss, Tony Stark. Nobody else. We have a mole at S.H.I.E.L.D. and I'm not sure who to trust. Make sure he understands this map is the Chitauri invasion plan. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do," Abraham said. It was not apprehension which danced across his face, but excitement. This is what he had wanted all along in life, before his mother had squashed his ambitions.

"I've … um … got to go," Steve said, moving back towards the door. "But … um … do you think I should …"

"Yes," Abraham said. "Ask her. Just don't bring her near any active war zones. Or you'll be subjected to lot worse than my wife's favorite recipe for green bean casserole."

Giving him a salute, Steve rushed through the house, searching for the woman he loved.

"Bernice!" Steve said. "We've got to go!"

X

_Note: Every family has skeletons. Imagine Steve's surprise to discover he is one of them? Peggy turned Steve into the hero she always wanted, and then the very traits she'd fostered cost her his life. Can you imagine trying to be the follow-up guy to such an act? It would be like singing the ABC Song live at La Scala after Luciano Pavarotti sang Nessun Dorma. I would think she would take a more careful track the second time around, steering her husband and children to be heroic in other ways. Ways that wouldn't cost her –their- lives, too._

_And for those of you who've never seen Pavarotti sing Nessum Dorma live, here's a link (replace +dot+ with '.' and close up the space between the '/'):_

_www +dot+ youtube +dot+ com / watch?v=9fYvVRLPVcs&feature=related_

_Yeah … it's like that. A tough act to follow. Or as one poster said 'I hate when people compare Pavarotti and god, I mean he's good, but he's no Pavarotti." _

_Thanks for reading and be sure to drop me your thoughts, ideas, or criticisms in the comments box below. I really enjoyed hearing people's horror stories about their own experiences eating green bean casserole!_


	42. Chapter 42

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list and pushed up all those happy little 'reader' statistics. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Shakespeare's Lemonade, cucumbersrockursocks, Adamantium Rose, Maddy Stone, FinallyFallingAllOverAgain, rEdRoSeSiNaUgUsT, Penny Tortoiseshell, Jelsemium, LEPrecon, Arrows the Wolf, **__and __**Qweb.**_

_Special thanks to __**Shakespeare's Lemonade **__for pointing out a historical inaccuracy all the way back in Chapter 2!_

_And now … __**Jelsemium **__has suggested we start a 'name that alien' contest. So if anybody has ideas for what to call our little 6-fingered friend, shout it out…_

_LOL! Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 42

"Commander Rogers wishes us to believe a 67-year-old sketch he made of his friend is really an invasion plan for Midgard?" Thor asked, his forehead wrinkling in thought as he stared at the photocopy of Peggy standing in front of a map of Europe, other continents visible on the periphery of the picture.

"Is that any more absurd than hiding the Cosmic Cube in a carving of Yggdrasil in a church in Norway?" Steve asked.

"We already searched that island," Natasha said. "We came up empty."

"We didn't search inside the volcano," Steve said. "We only searched the waters around the island looking for the two missing Leviathans."

"That island has been crawling with Australian military personnel since the helicarrier was destroyed," Nick Fury said. "Including all known caves. If there was something else there besides the locals the Chitauri kidnapped, it's long gone."

"We should go take a look," Tony Stark said. He looked at the others and shrugged. "Hey … it will give me an excuse to dodge the Society for Mucosal Immunology symposium Pepper wants me to speak at tomorrow night. Mucous... Not my thing."

"Banner?" Fury asked.

Bruce looked at the photocopy of the sketch Steve brought in.

"It's too much of a coincidence to ignore," Bruce said. "If nothing else, it will give me a chance to check up on the people the Chitauri victimized."

"It's a waste of resources," Natasha said. She looked up at Steve. "You accuse _me _of not being right in the head since the incident. But what about _you?_ You keep coming up with these crazy theories that don't pan out. And I, for one, am sick of it! For all we know, you ran home and drew that picture after you got laughed out of here the other day."

There was silence. Steve noticed that nobody jumped to his defense. Fury was right about one thing. He _was _losing the trust of the people he was supposed to lead. Including the lower-level S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel and regular enlisted men, the ordinary heroes he was supposed to act as liason for between them and the superheroes.

"Clint?" Fury asked. "You haven't weighed in yet."

Clint sat straightening the fletching on his arrows, making sure every single pinfeather was just right, so that when he finally let an arrow fly, not even the tiniest bit of drag would cause his arrow to veer off. He didn't look up.

"Steve may be going bonkers," Clint said. "But he's not a liar. If he says he drew that picture 67 years ago after seeing some enemy map and then two of the locations later turned out to be significant, then we should go check it out. If he's wrong, Fury can send him for some happy time at the VA until he gets his shit straightened out."

Natasha shot Clint a glare. Clint did not look up. Trouble in paradise again?

"I prognosticate the interlopers shall be long gone," Thor said.

"Probably," Bruce said. "But maybe they left something behind. Clues. Like that stuff Tony's got down in his lab, trying to figure out what the heck it is? Right now, we've got nothing."

"I agree," Tony Stark said.

"Thou only seeketh toys to pad your arsenal," Thor said, his tone more affectionate than accusatory. "Merchant of Death."

"Sayeth the pot calling the kettle black," Tony said, giving him a grin. "God of Thunder."

The two engaged in their habitual stare-down, chest-thumping, back-pounding match of what Bernice liked to call 'testosterone poisoning,' neither besting the other. And at this point, it didn't appear either of them really cared all that much who 'won' the pissing contest.

Natasha gave an exasperated shrug. "Okay … I'm outvoted. Just make sure _this _facility is secure before we go chasing our tails halfway around the world. Or I'm holding _you _responsible." She pointed straight at Steve.

"I agree with Agent Romanov's assessment of the situation," Fury said. He turned to stare at Steve and gave him his trademark glower out of his one good eye. "I got my eye on you, boy."

"Yes, Sir," Steve said.

Nick Fury looked at his watch.

"This facility," Nick Fury said. "If it even exists, has been sitting pretty for the past 67 years. It's not going to go away tonight. Commander Rogers still needs two more days for his leg to heal before I'm willing to send him out on another mission and Doctor Banner is running an experiment for another government agency that will be _very _upset if I redeploy him on what may be a wild goose chase. And Miss Potts will have my head on a platter if I upset her symposium. We all know better than to piss off Miss Potts."

Fury gave Tony Stark the _exact _same hairy eyeball he had just given Steve.

"Therefore, we leave at oh-seven-hundred Sunday morning. Agent Romanov … you're going to be in charge of this one. I want you to start setting up the logistics. The rest of you … go home and get some rest. Two days until show time."

Natasha put in charge. Not him. The ultimate slight. The Avengers broke up and headed to their various training activities they constantly engaged in to stay on top of their game. Tony Stark lingered, rummaging through his locker. As a consultant, technically he wasn't bound by the training requirements of the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, any more than Thor was, but he _did _show up for sparring and briefings.

"Okay," Steve said. "What is it you have to say?"

Tony Stark flashed him his trademark grin.

"You should check your text messages sometime, Kermit," Tony said.

And with that, he headed out of the situation room, leaving Steve standing there alone. He was under orders to rest. Fury had banned him from all things training-related until Banner gave him a clean bill of health. There was nothing to do but pay his alien friend a quick visit then go home.

An absurd thought popped into his mind. Steve felt for the little box in his pocket and grinned.

Not a bad idea…

X

X

"They're coming to take me away," Ralph taunted. "They're coming to take me away, hee hee, ho ho, haha."

"No, really," Bernice protested. "I'm serious."

"To the funny farm, where life is wonderful all the time."

"Knock it off!" Bernice said.

"And I'll be glad to see those men in their clean white suits," Ralph continued, Huojin joining in as a background chorus as both men pulled down the long, white sleeves of their lab coats and pretended to wrap themselves in a straitjacket. "They're coming to take me away!"

"Doctor Nyi will believe me," Bernice snapped.

"Doctor Nyi is in Malibu visiting his family for the holiday," Ralph said.

"And if you hadn't skipped out the first half of the week," Huojin added, "you'd have the day off like everybody else in this company instead of being forced to come in the day after Thanksgiving."

"I told you," Bernice said. "I had to take care of a sick friend."

"Anyone we know?" Ralph asked. "A certain tall, blonde, and very well built mystery man too top-secret to know about?"

"I said honky tonk …" Huojin sang in a high falsetto voice while Ralph performed a facsimile of somebody dancing the Badonkadonk.

"Knock it off!" Bernice said, more forcefully this time. She was used to her co-workers antics, geek talk to spice up the more tedious aspects of running engineering specs that just weren't doing what your models _said _they should do. But she was here for a reason. And it _wasn't _to doodle aliens using the weapon the two were in the process of breaking down for potential retro-engineering. Doctor Nyi had received a call from JARVIS informing him, before she had even called in sick, that Mr. Stark wished Bernice to take the rest of the week off, no questions asked.

"Neigh!" Ralph said, pretending he was a horse, dancing the Badonkadonk. "Neigh!"

"C'mon!" Bernice said. "I'm serious! If you look at the behavior of the Leviathans as a kind of trained war horse, only with some kind of control collar on it, their movement begins to make sense!"

"You seen any road apples, cowboy?" Huojin said in his best John Wayne accent, pretending to lift up an imaginary tail and drop horse turds onto the laboratory floor.

Bernice crossed her arms and tapped her foot.

"Fine," she said. "I came in today because I thought you two would like to get the credit for getting first crack at this. But I guess I was wrong. I'll just wait until Monday when Kenneth Greenhalgh gets back from vacation and give _him _first dibs on this theory."

Both men stopped joking and sat back in their seats. Kenneth Greenhalgh was the biggest dickwad in Stark Industries.

"You wouldn't," Ralph said.

Bernice gave them a 'go ahead make my day' look that would have made Grandma Peggy proud.

"She would," Huojin said.

Bernice raised one eyebrow, one finger tapping on the opposite forearm of her crossed arms.

"Okay, okay," Ralph said. "Just stop comparing it to animals. This is New York City. The only animals I've ever seen are the chipmunks in Central Park."

Bernice considered which tidbits she wished to share. After discussing her theories with Steve, they had decided putting a bug in _somebody's _ear without revealing she had been watching the last attack … and memorizing every move down to the tiniest second from just across the harbor … would be the safest course. Steve suspected at least _one _mole at S.H.I.E.L.D. and worried some may have infiltrated Stark Industries as well.

The one thing all of the PsiOps team who'd been compromised had in common is that their loved ones reported they'd been distracted for weeks before the attack. Pod People, one of their widows had called her now-deceased husband. Bernice had snuck in on Ralph and Huojin building a geeky robotics side-project for the Robogames extreme robotic sports competition using company facilities, something frowned upon by corporate, instead of the work they _claimed _to be in here to do on their day off. They had instantly jumped, no discernible delay in their reaction time as they had shoved the pieces of 'Defcon NinjaRobot' under the lab station and pulled out something legitimate looking.

The last laugh was on _them. _Everybody but Ralph and Huojin knew the entire company knew they were the 'Masked NinjaRobot Duo' who entered the RoboGames every single year … and lost to the whiz kids at MIT. Including Mr. Stark. If there was also a mole at Stark Industries, it wasn't Huojin or Ralph.

"How about World of Warcraft?" Bernice asked, using the analogy which had made no sense to technologically-challenged Steve. "What if the Chitauri soldiers are like the soldiers on a video game. Only instead of skills, handicaps and vitalities, you're dealing with a baseline level of survival skills no amount of programming has been able to destroy. Like … I don't know. Nerfing. You load a new program onto a hard drive, but there's some like … bottleneck or something. A bad circuit?"

She was reaching. She only knew enough about video game development and the hardware that ran it to recognize it when she saw it. Which was why she was bringing the problem to _them. _Put a bug in their ear and let _them _take the credit for discovering it. That way, it didn't lead back to Steve.

Ralph snickered, but Huojin tapped thoughtfully on his lip.

"Show me what you've got, Geekgirl," Huojin said.

Bernice pulled out some video footage she had tagged while Steve had been unconscious, videos which had stuck in her memory from the original invasion of New York. There had been something a little odd about the alien's behavior, but she hadn't had enough information at the time to put two and two together. She'd tagged several instances of gliders with unusually slow reaction times when faced with a threat which came at them from the side.

"This is how fast they react when the target they're chasing does something expected," Bernice said, showing security cam footage that had captured some poor policeman who had died when he'd turned around to shoot them as they were chasing him down instead of simply running.

"Inhumanly fast," Ralph said. "As though they anticipate it."

"Of course they anticipate it," Bernice said. "Fight or flight. Most creatures will either turn and fight or run when faced with a bigger threat. It's predictable. You can program for it."

"We program stuff that way all the time," Ralph said. "Even the elevators. Either you're going to stay inside and ride to the next floor. Or you're going to realize that's your floor and try to step out the door after it's already begun to close."

"That's a lame example,"Huojin said. "Too many variables. Bernice … can you show us more?"

Bernice played several more, counting out the seconds as the aliens reacted to the Avengers and even ordinary civilians and policemen behaving in a flight-or-fight manner, versus when something unexpected happened, such as a building fell due to weapons fire from an outside attacker or one human unexpectedly came to the aid of another. The one that clinched it, however, was video footage of the Hulk. The big green man was _so _unpredictable the Chitauri failed again and again to anticipate his reactions.

Bernice smiled. Wouldn't her two geek-friends be surprised to know their geek-hero was really a super-hero?

"So it _is _like World of Warcraft," Ralph said. "When something unexpected happens, it nerfs the bad guys for a few vitalities until some other control function comes in. But I don't understand why this guy over here … why he _didn't _have the delay."

"They're living creatures," Bernice said. "_People _have programming, too. We call them survival skills."

"I don't buy it," Huojin said.

Bernice gave them a coy smile. It had been the burnt egg dropping off the ceiling of her flat which had given her the idea.

"Here … watch this." She queued up another video that depicted a Leviathan swimming through the air chasing Iron Man. Just as her co-workers were fully engrossed in the video, she pulled a rubber tarantula out of her pocket and dropped it right down in front of their noses.

"Yaaaah!" Ralph shouted.

"Eeeeek!" Huojin squealed like a little girl.

Bernice burst out laughing. "Did I make my point?"

"How did you do that?" Ralph asked, clutching his chest.

Bernice turned around and tapped the back of her neck at the base of her skull, thankful for the 'Anatomy for the Artist' class she had been forced to take as a general education requirement in college.

"Corpus amygdaloideum," Bernice said. "The amygdala. It's the oldest portion of our brain after the brain stem. It's the part of our brain that evolved millions of years ago when snakes and spiders were still bigger than mammals. It's what makes us fear certain stimulai that we know logically are no harm … like fear of heights or spiders."

"That damned spider is _still _bigger than a human!" Huojin said, poking the rubber tarantula with his pen to make sure it wasn't real.

"So if you were to treat these guys like a living machine," Ralph said, staring at the alien on the screen. "Like … hardware. And overwrite the software with this video game program somehow. But you still had some of the old software on there that you were never able, for some reason, to erase..."

"Or didn't _want _to erase," Huojin said. "Like breathing. You have to remember this is the part of the brain that tells us to eat and shit."

"Okay … so you don't _want_ to erase it completely, because then your machine won't power up," Ralph said.

"And so your new program works better than the original programming," Huojin said. "Until…"

"Until the machine has to choose between a baseline function and a higher one!" both men said at once. "Overloading the motherboard."

The two men bantered back and forth, postulating wild theories and asking Bernice to pull up any video she might have seen that supported or shot down that theory. She left them there in the lab, still arguing, as they ran with the theory she had planted in their brain. It didn't matter if she ever got credit for the idea. Two of Stark Industries best minds would probably spend the weekend locked down in the lab testing out every possible theory that might support their idea so that they could plunk something down on Doctor Nyi's desk first thing Monday morning that wouldn't get them laughed at.

Checking her cell phone, she saw the horribly misspelled text message from Steve and smiled. She _knew _how much he hated using text messaging. He was trying.

'_Your apartment. 7:00 p.m. Love Steve'_

X


	43. Chapter 43

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list and pushed up all those happy little 'reader' statistics. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Jelsemium, Arrows the Wolf, GhibliGirl91, ChildOfFury93, Kelly Jo, Goldenpuon, AlyyKatt13, Penny Tortoiseshell, AndieGibbs09, Adamantium Rose, Mystewitch**_

_To __**AndieGibbs09**__, who has won the 'name that alien' contest. Steve's pet Chitauri shall hereinafter be named 'Count Rugen,' after the six-fingered man on The Princess Bride. My name is Inigo Montoya … you killed my father … prepare to die… LOL!_

_Special thanks to __**Jelsemium, **__for pointing out some inaccurate song lyrics in the last chapter. All fixed now!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 43

"So what is this all about?" Bernice asked.

Steve was acting weird. Okay … Steve _always _acted weird. Perhaps weird wasn't the right word for it. He acted perfectly appropriate at all times for somebody who had been born in 1920. He was acting almost … anxious.

"Dress warm."

"Will we be riding your motorcycle?"

The Excursion belonged to S.H.I.E.L.D. One of countless anonymous fleet vehicles the government doled out to its agents. Steve hated the thing with a vengeance, claiming he'd driven tanks through war zones that handled better. He only drove it when _forced_ to drive it. Rain, shine, sleet … anything short of snow … and Steve was on his motorcycle. Or walked. He enjoyed walking and often took the bus to get to his destination, claiming he enjoyed _seeing _the neighborhoods he passed through and not merely viewed them as obstacles. Tonight was a bright, cold November evening with just a hint of frost in the air. The kind of weather Steve looked forward to.

"We'll be taking the bus," Steve said. "Then walking. It's not far."

Steve's idea of 'far' and her idea of 'far' usually differed. Although with his leg still in a brace, hopefully he wouldn't run any marathons. With a sigh, Bernice pulled on her sensible walking boots, but opted to wear her fashionable black pea-coat. She vacillated between her fuzzy muffler and hat, which made her look like a teddy bear, or her more fashionable beret and a silk scarf. She opted for the beret, but shoved their ugly cousins into her purse. Just in case. After spending the night on the Statue of Liberty, she'd sworn she would swallow her pride and dress sensibly whenever it came to adventures with Steve Rogers.

He took her hand and led her down the street. They caught a bus over the East River and got off in the Lower East Side. He zigzagged down a series of city blocks, his expression quiet and thoughtful and stopped in front of a nondescript brick tenement. The kind that used to have cramped apartments rented to poor, working class families, but nowadays had all been converted to condos_._ Tiny little studio apartments with enormous price tags.

"I grew up in this house," Steve said. "My parents immigrated to this country at the end of World War I. They both worked so hard that I was their only child. My father died in a construction accident finishing the American Radiator Building in 1924."

"I'm sorry." Bernice knew bits and pieces of his background, but this was the first time he had ever taken her for a walk around his old neighborhood.

"So am I," Steve said softly. "I don't remember much about him. Just how tired he always was when he came home late at night, filthy from working. Mama would lay out a tub with hot water from the kettle to soak his feet while he ate supper. It was usually past my bedtime, but Mama wouldn't complain if I snuck out of bed to tell him about our day. He acted as though my silly stories were the most important thing he had ever heard."

Bernice was silent. Steve wasn't taciturn or shy around people he felt comfortable with, but he wasn't a man of many words, either. If he felt like introducing her to his past tonight, she was happy to oblige him. Perhaps this was his way of introducing her to _his _family? Just as she had introduced him to _hers _yesterday?

"What happened after your father passed away?"

"The world isn't kind to a mother raising a kid alone." Steve tugged her hand and began walking again, crossing the street and leading her down another block. "Especially back in 1924. But she was a hard worker and people liked her."

"Did your grandparents help out?"

"My grandparents were back in Ireland," Steve said. "I never got to meet them. My mother used to get letters from them from time to time, written in the Gaelic. I couldn't read them, but she used to translate the gist of them for me."

His eyes focused at some point in his past, wearing that serious expression he often wore whenever something was on his mind. As though the weight of the world rested upon his shoulders.

"She worked two jobs, trying to keep a roof over our head," Steve said. "I inherited my asthma from her, but she never let it slow her down." His voice broke. "Then one day she got pneumonia and couldn't breathe. Just like that, she was gone."

"I'm sorry." Bernice squeezed his hand. "I know how that feels."

"I know you do," Steve said. "I'm sorry, too. I would have liked to have met your mother."

His expression was thoughtful, their breath visible against the cold air as they walked in silence, only the gentle light of street lanterns visible on this quiet side-street. They came to a high-rise apartment building. One of the newer ones that had begun sprouting up in this part of town like purple loosestrife. Gentile … but invasive. Strangling out whatever neighborhood they cropped up in until all the native vegetation was suffocated.

"This used to be a vacant lot," Steve said. "I spent all my spare time here playing baseball. The bigger kids picked on me because I was no darned good at sports."

He tapped on his chest, one corner of his mouth turning up in a remorseful smile.

"I couldn't run the bases without having an asthma attack. But Bucky made them let me play. He said I had too much determination to sit on the bench. His mom died a few years after my dad, so we kind of hit it off. We used to call ourselves the orphan twins because one parent was dead and the other worked so many hours they were always dead-tired."

"The man in the pictures?" Bernice asked. Many of the pictures in the scrapbook depicted Steve standing next to a handsome, dark-haired man with a hint of the devil in his eyes. The Black Irish, her grandmother used to call men like Bucky Barnes. Black hair. Fair skin. Blue eyes. Traits of the fairy people who had spawned them, the old legends told.

"He was the best friend I ever had," Steve said. "I still miss him."

"For you," Bernice said. "It's only been a little more than a year since he died. Of course you miss him." She reached up and placed the palm of her hand upon his cheek.

He bent to give her a tender kiss, his lips light against hers. Something was on his mind, and she knew from past experience it was best to let him go at his own pace and not rush him. She joked with her friends that Steve was clueless, but that was really not the case. Steve tended to be quite in touch with what he was feeling. It was _expressing_ it that always got him into trouble. Probably why he'd learned to express his feelings through his art. She wondered if, perhaps, he had drawn nearly as many pictures of _her _as she had of _him_?

He put his arm around her shoulder and guided her into neighborhoods she rarely frequented. Not terrible, but every bit as run down as the one where he'd bought his gym. Apartments sat over pawn shops, restaurants, and tiny ethnic grocery shops bearing a cornucopia of foreign languages. He stopped in front of a seedy looking bar. With _him _here she felt safe, but she would never wander around this kind of neighborhood at night on her own.

"Every kid I knew volunteered to go to war," Steve said. "But the Army wouldn't take me. I weighed less than you do now … and was shorter, too. They told me I should be grateful I didn't have to go."

Even though she'd seen the pictures, Bernice could just not picture Steve as short. Thinner, yes. But not short. Perhaps it was because the men in her family tended to run tall and thin? A legacy handed down from her great-grandfather. A small, wicked voice in the back of her brain whispered that had she met him as that small, thin man, _she _probably wouldn't have given him the time of day any more than her grandmother had.

"It's not in your nature to quit." It was the first thing her grandmother had noticed about him. His quiet tenacity.

"I've never been a quitter," Steve said. "Not even when I was a ninety pound weakling. One day I walked into this bar and said I was determined to enlist in the army. Some guys made fun of me and tossed me out into the back alley. Bucky showed up wearing his new uniform and beat them to a pulp. We always swore we'd stick together, but he got in and I got rejected. I was so jealous, I would have done _anything _to go with him."

"Is that why you let Doctor Erskine put you in the machine."

"No." He was walking again, leading her through a past he had spoken of in bits and pieces, but this time she was hearing the whole story, complete with a walk down memory lane. The neighborhood got a little better, though the language now spoken was Spanish instead of the Irish brogues Steve would have heard as a kid. Bernice waited for her answer.

"All I ever wanted to do was serve," Steve said. "That was all my parents ever wanted, either. They served their employers, always happy to have food and a job. And they served our church. Life wasn't easy for them here, but it had been a lot worse back in Ireland. They taught me to appreciate how good things are in this country. I always said that when I grew up, I wanted to serve something bigger than just some employer. America. An ideal._"_

They stopped in front of an old church, scaffolding surrounding the building which appeared to be under renovations. Steve pointed to a low building behind it.

"That was where I went to school," Steve said. "Though it was a different building, then. This one was built after I died." He pointed to the church. "And that was where I was an altar boy. Father Murphy took me and Bucky under his wing. Always kept us too busy doing errands to get into much trouble."

They walked around to the side of the building where there was a narrow alley between the church and the school. Steve opened the gate and led her inside.

"Why is the church all torn apart like this?" Bernice asked.

"Because they tried to _kill_ it!" Steve said, his eyes flashing with rare anger. "Greed … pure and simple. The Archdiocese wanted to sell the land it sits on because it's too valuable. When the people refused to let them close down their church, the Archdiocese just knocked a hole in the wall and shattered all the stained glass windows."

"Oh!" Bernice recalled news stories heard as a teenager. "This is Saint Brigids?"

"Yes."

She could hear the betrayal in his voice. The knowledge that while he had been dead, the Archdiocese had pocketed more than $100,000 worth of donations the parishioners had raised to fix their own church, then illegally hit it with a wrecking ball while they were in court trying to get an injunction to save it. An anonymous donor had stepped forward and paid off the Archdiocese to leave the building standing, but only the building now stood where a family of god had once lived and prayed.

What was it like, to lose not only your family, your friends, and your place in time, but also the very bedrock you had built your identity upon? Religion. Faith in the very god who had resurrected him from the dead? For the first time, she realized just how far out of time Steve really was.

They stopped at the service entrance to the school. Steve knocked until a plainly dressed Hispanic man opened it. He greeted Steve as though he were someone he knew well. The man grabbed some keys and led them through a maze of scaffolding and tarps until they got to a back door. He unlocked it and gestured for them to go inside, not following. Steve's hands automatically found the light switch in the dark, as though it were a task he had performed countless times. It was not the lofty cathedral inside Bernice had been expecting, but a gutted building, only a small table at one end of what had once been an enormous galley.

"The altar was over here." Steve led her through the gutted building. "One day Bucky and I snuck in and stole a sip of wine from the ceremonial chalice. Father Murphy made us do penance by waxing the entire floor on our hands and knees while reciting Revelation 2:5. Over and over again. Until the entire floor was done. Even the back rooms."

"Revelation?" Bernice asked. "Isn't that the one Clint Eastwood made a movie out of? Pale Rider?"

"That passage comes later," Steve said. "Revelation 2:5 is about pentenance. And candlesticks." A small smile graced his lips as he looked back on some event in a past so distant she didn't want to think about it. "We never _did _figure out the part about the candlesticks. It was a sip of wine we stole. Not candlesticks."

He reached over and pushed back a strand of hair which had drifted over to her mouth.

"You see," he said softly. "I'm not perfect."

"I never said you were."

"Good," Steve said. "I'm not just some picture on a kid's trading card. I'm human. And I make mistakes."

He led her over to where an enormous scar marred the wall between two of the windows, only plywood covering where 25 foot tall stained glass masterpieces depicting the life of Jesus had once allowed streams of colored sunlight to dance into the building. The hole where the wrecking ball had tried to knock down the wall had been rebuilt, but the windows had been irreparably shattered. He ran his hand along a boarded up windowsill and paused at a certain spot, as though he knew it well.

"This church was built by survivors of the Great Potato Famine," Steve said. "Both of my parents lost their grandparents and most of their aunts and uncles. They starved to death. Just like everybody else in Ireland during the Great Hunger. When this window developed a crack, Father Murphy proposed dedicating a memorial to the famine victims. My mother took on a third job to help the church raise money for the glass and add plaques memorializing her family's names."

He paused, his cheek twitching as he suppressed his anger.

"They say that when the wrecking ball came, the first thing they did was smash in the windows and knock the plaques off the wall along with all the bricks. And then they scooped them up and threw them all away! As if those people had never even existed!"

Bernice squeezed his hand. Even though her own mother was gone, she had a healthy, vibrant family to fill in the gaps. Steve had … nobody. Not even the places where he had grown up were the same anymore. Even something that was _supposed _to be permanent, his church, was gone.

"Why are we here, Steve?"

"I wanted you to know who I really am," Steve said. "I'm just a simple guy. Never asked for much. Don't _want _much."

He paused, his eyes far away.

"I just never thought I would have so much _taken _from me." Emotion filled his voice.

He turned to her.

"I'm sick of losing things I love," he said softly. "This time, I want to grab on with both hands and not let go. Because if I were ever to lose you, too, I don't think I could handle it."

"I'm not going anywhere," Bernice said.

"Do you mean that?"

"Yes." This was the strangest date she'd ever had.

Steve tugged her hand and led her to a beautiful hand-carved gothic reredos still mounted on the wall where the altar had once been. A simple wooden table sat in front of it, placed carefully on the sawdust-laden floor.

"I hope you don't mind," he said, his expression nervous. "The parishioners usually hold mass in the school building, but I … I hoped…"

"It's a beautiful church," Bernice interrupted. "It will be beautiful once again."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"What _are_ you asking?" Bernice asked. His expression was thoughtful and intense. A tingling sensation went down her spine.

"I'm a soldier," Steve said. "I could be called out on a mission tomorrow and be killed. You understand that. Don't you?"

"Yes." Emotion choked up her throat. "The other night … I saw … I saw you …" She couldn't finish.

"That night was bad," Steve said. "A surprise attack. I didn't have my armor, or my injuries would have been a lot less severe. But I'm not going to lie to you. My line of work is dangerous. The hours stink. I get called out at weird hours of the night and disappear for days at a time. And sometimes I get wounded. There will be times you need me to be there for you, and I won't be, because somebody else will need me more. Do you really think you can live with that?"

"My mother died when I was twelve," Bernice said. "My father … he threw himself into his work. My family … my _whole _family … they stick together. They stick together and take care of one another because that's just the way we were raised."

"I envy you." He touched her cheek, then ran his finger down to trace the line of her jaw.

"Bernice … I lost my best friend because I couldn't hang on to him. And then fate took me away before I had a chance to tell your grandmother I had feelings for her. And now … now I look at you and I feel as though I'm running out of time."

"We have all the time in the world," Bernice said.

"No. We don't," he said. "I made that mistake once in my life, thinking I'd always have time to tell people what was in my heart. And I was wrong."

He pulled her into her arms and kissed the top of her head. She had seen him act this peculiar once before. The day after he had missed their date and had met her at the cemetery to tell her the truth. A chill of fear ran down into her gut.

"Are you breaking up with me?"

Both eyebrows raised in surprise. "Is that what you think I'm trying to tell you?"

"I … don't … know," Bernice said, her voice warbling.

Steve took both of her hands in his and held them level with his heart.

"I love you, Bernice Rosenthal," Steve said. He nodded towards a tiny cross nailed between the reredos to replace what had once been a magnificent crucifix. "And I'm asking you, before god, to marry me, because I hope by doing so _here _he won't take you from me. Like he has taken everyone else I've ever loved."

Tears welled in her eyes as her brain forced her mind to believe the unbelievable words he had just uttered.

"You want to marry … me?"

"Yes."

"Wh-when?"

"Right now."

Bernice blinked with surprise. "Now?"

"Now."

Steve reached into his pocket and pulled out a little black velvet box. He opened it and held it out for her to take. Inside was not the enormous engagement ring Mike had given her when he'd proposed, complete with a certificate of authenticity and fully insured in case it was ever lost or stolen, but two simple golden bands, devoid of any ornamentation.

"These belonged to my parents."

"But … my … family?"

"We can have any reception you want," Steve said. "Later. But right now, I want to make sure nothing can ever take you from me. Until death do us part."

"But it's too … quick," Bernice said. "We don't…"

"Is there anything else you need to know about me to know whether or not I would make a good husband?"

"No."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes," she said. "Oh god … yes I do."

"Then why wait?"

"But what if we're not … compatible?"

"You broke off an engagement once before," Steve said. "Do you see any signs that we're not compatible?"

Bernice's mind raced back to the long list she had made after Mike had dumped her. Of all the warning signs she _should_ have seen it coming. Mike had never had _time _for her. Even when she was with him, it had always been about _him_. _His_ career. _His_ problems. Things _he _wanted and _his_ aspirations. Her hopes and dreams had always taken a back seat to _his_. She had twisted and molded herself to fit Mike's notions of what the wife of a future attorney _should_ look like. Including taking modern art, because having that type of artwork in her portfolio added prestige. Mike had wanted her to be somebody else.

Steve loved her just the way she was. In all of her geeky weirdness…

"If we get any more compatible," Bernice said. "We could be twins."

"Then why wait?" His tone changed, no longer reasoning, but had almost a pleading quality. Not desperation … but the tone of voice somebody might have when they're running out of time.

Time. Man out of time. What must it be like, to have the one force in the universe even Albert Einstein had claimed was immalleable, get stolen from you?

"Here?" She gestured to the shattered church.

"Here," Steve said, his eyes glistening. "This old building is the closest thing I have left to a family."

She looked at the gutted building that was part of his past. A past which had shaped who he was today. A past that had disappeared when he'd been plucked out of his own time and dropped into hers. He had crossed time to be with her. The least she could do was reach across that chasm and accommodate what few fragments remained so he wouldn't be completely adrift. He wanted to get married someplace that held meaning for him. Even though it was every bit as beat up and battered as _he _was.

Bernice nodded, tears springing to her eyes. "Yes."

Steve gave her the first real smile he had given her all night. He kissed her hands, then strode to the door they had come in through to speak to the man who had let them in. A few minutes later, the man came back with an elderly woman and a boy of around nineteen, both of whom Steve greeted by name. The man pulled a vestment over his street clothes to signal he was this churches priest.

The small table that had been placed under the reredos had a clean, white cloth adorning it. A makeshift altar, but an altar nonetheless. The priest lit two ordinary white candles you'd find in any five and dime store, the candlesticks mismatched finds from a yard sale. Candlesticks! She recalled the passage the priest had made Steve recite as penance from her stint at Sunday school, something about the lord would remove the candlesticks unless you repented. She wondered if that passage haunted him now, seeing that not only the candlesticks, but the entire church had nearly been removed?

"Bendícenos padre," the priest began.

What was it her grandmother had said? Good boys waited until marriage, but pounding on the door of the nearest church to make it legal had been quite socially acceptable in her day. The 'official wedding' would usually come weeks later. _After _the family had a chance to get over their initial shock and throw a _proper _wedding.

She pulled his head down to whisper in his ear.

"You know … you don't have to marry me to have sex with me. This is 2012. You can just skip to the good part."

"This _is_ the good part." Steve kissed her hand and turned her towards the priest.

"Nuestro Señor," the priest said. "Estamos reunido aquí para unir a este hombre y esta mujer en el sacramento del santo matrimonio."

Either she was shell-shocked at how handsome he looked with his enormous smile, or what transpired was the shortest wedding ceremony in the history of the planet. In Spanish, no less! Before a second thought had a chance to cross her mind, the priest was saying 'marido e mujer' … man and wife … and announcing it was time to kiss the bride. When Steve finally allowed her to come up for air, she was left to stare at the matching gold bands, not certain she remembered how they had gotten there, but positive she wanted them to _be _there.

"Felicitaciones!" the two witnesses said. Congratulations.

Bernice finally recognized the 19-year-old Spanish boy, dressed up for church instead of the gang colors he usually wore. Eusebio. He was one of the kids she'd seen spending time at Steve's gym. The elderly woman could only have been his grandmother.

Steve gave the boy a very modern high five and thanked them, dragging Bernice out the door they had come through. They got out to the street and there, parked at the curb where it hadn't been before, was Steve's motorcycle. The boy must have driven it here for him so he could walk her through his past before proposing marriage. She realized things had happened exactly as he had _meant _for them to happen. Deliberately simple.

"You'd better put on that scarf you hid in your handbag, Mrs. Rogers," Steve said with a grin. "Or that pretty neck of yours is going to freeze."

"Where are we going?"

"My place," Steve said. "It needs a lot of work. But it's mine. And it's where you belong."

With a kick of his heel, the Indian rumbled to life, cha-chugging like the sturdy, reliable means of transportation it really was. She put on her helmet and climbed onto the seat, snuggling against the shelter of his strong back as they rode off into the wind. All they needed was a sunset but, failing that, the soft nighttime glow of the Manhattan skyscrapers signaled they were riding off together into a happy beginning.

X

_Note: In 1945, most war brides had less than 24-hours-notice on their wedding day, when boyfriends who had been sent overseas to fight the Axis suddenly rotated back home, and then were shipped back out again with 48 hours. Sometimes, the young man who showed up at your doorstep asking for your hand in marriage was not even a boyfriend, but a childhood acquaintance who would announce you had been all they could think about the entire time they had been getting shot at, and would you please become their wife? With the world at war, supplies scarce, and few brides able to afford a wedding dress even if they –had- been given the time to plan, most weddings were performed in what became known as a utility suit. A simple woolen blazer and skirt that a young woman could wear again and again. _

_Surprisingly, most of these sudden marriages LASTED. The divorce rate for wartime marriages is far lower than any other time in history, and not simply because society frowned upon divorce in those days. Couples usually got married after a short time dating, usually three or four months, and –stayed- married, probably because the focus of the war and forced time apart made couples realize just how precious it was simply to have one another._

_Steve's proposal is peculiar. But given all he's been through, I just couldn't see him doing it any other way. He's a man out of 1945, and he's getting shipped out on another mission first thing Sunday morning. He would propose marriage the way a soldier in 1945 would propose. The wild card was Bernice, a modern woman accustomed to long (if ever) engagements, 'living in sin,' an expectation of much pomp and romance if you finally –did- get married, and much skepticism of marriage due to an astronomically high divorce rate._

_The Bernie Rosenthal of Marvel canon was the one who proposed marriage to Steve, and then she broke things off when she relocated to Michigan to go to law school. OC Bernice would do no such thing. Her father mourned her mother's death and never remarried, and her entire family bears the wartime imprimatur of a grandmother who made sure her progeny always understood the most important thing in life was each other. OC Bernice is a fantasy artist who is also a romantic at heart. Of course she said yes._

_The relevant verse from Relevations 2:5 Steve had to recite after he and Bucky stole a swig of wine from the holy chalice is as follows:_

_Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,_

_And repent, and do the first works;_

_Or else I will come unto thee quickly,_

_And will remove thy candlestick out of his place,_

_Except thou repent._

_I can picture Steve reciting such a verse whenever faced with decision whether to do what he knows is right, versus what might be convenient for him._

_Sadly, the story about Saint Brigid's church is TRUE. In searching for an appropriate Irish Roman Catholic Church located in the Lower East Side, I came across the story of Saint Brigid's. I felt it fit in with the underlying sadness Steve feels at time stealing everything away from him. The school has survived, but the building is still a gutted shell. You can read more about Saint Brigid's and see for yourself the setting this chapter took place in at (close up spaces around '.' and '/'):_

_ daytoninmanhattan . / 2011 / 10 / miraculous-survival-of-st-brigids . html_

_Don't forget to leave your comments in the box below if you have time. Good, bad, indifferent, it's all good!_


	44. Chapter 44

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list and pushed up all those happy little 'reader' statistics. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Marianne Silver,**__**Neverland 123, Golden-Luck, total-animal-lover, blown-transistor, Qweb, Undapper Thoughts, Jhessill, the real vampire, GhibliGirl91, Adamantium Rose, Courtney, goldenpuon, skybird716, LEPrecon, spiffymac0617, gryffindorgal87, pizzagirl, Kelly Jo, TheMGracie, Arrows the Wolf, Almyra, Mystewitch, La Bella Figura, sssweetie, Penny Tortoiseshell, AndieGibbs09, Katya Jade, **_

_To __**Jhessill **__…. a real-life modern Army bride who got both engaged and married on three-hours-notice just like Bernice and Steve… and __**La Bella Figura … **__whose grandparents were one of those WWII quick rotation marriages._

_To __**Adamantium Rose, **__who made some suggestions to clean up my lousy Spanish in the last chapter._

_To __**Mystewitch **__and __**goldenpuon, **__who have both been making helpful suggestions to bury my dialogue attributions in the action. 'He said/she said' is such a pain in the butt when you're writing dialogue. Modern editors thrash you if you do anything but say 'he said/she said,' but it's so BORING!_

_Please note that I have changed the rating of the story as of this chapter to 'M' because it covers mature subject matter. I have tried to keep it a 'soft M' since some of my readers may be younger than age 16. If you don't want to read 'M' I suggest you skip to the next chapter to return to some Tony Stark arrogant goodness without the side-order of smut. I will try to balance the needs of my YA readers with the fact this is a romance and these two are now married in future chapters. Please! Self-censor! I don't want hate emails from people's parents!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

Chapter 44

Steve killed the engine and helped his blushing bride off the seat, her cheeks made all the more rosy from riding in the cold. Her eyes sparkled like a little girl on Christmas morning, as though she were about to throw open the door to the living room and see what Santa had left for her under the tree. No sooner had she gotten the helmet off than he indulged the urge to kiss those decadent lips, allowing the hunger he had kept tightly leashed since the first time he had lay eyes upon her to romp, unbound.

"I can't believe we just got married," Bernice said when he finally let her come up for air. "Pinch me so I know that I'm not dreaming."

"Only if you pinch me first." Steve gave her an embarrassed grin. "So I know you didn't really tell me no."

"I almost did."

Steve's grin disappeared.

"But only because it was so _quick!" _Bernice laughed, putting both hands on his cheeks. "It usually takes guys _years_ to get around to popping the question. You like to take everything so slow … I had already braced myself to be just your girlfriend for the next ten years."

Steve had never been particularly good about expressing the way he felt. First through art, then action, the last thing he wanted to do was justify _why _he felt so compelled to make her his forever. Usually he performed some physical act to hide when he got tongue-tied, the momentary delay to flip on a light switch or do some small task enough to provide cover. But Eustebio had left the lights on, tidying up the garage so Steve didn't even have a stray wrench to pick up so his brain would have time to fashion words describing the emotions clamoring in his chest. There was, however, _one _action which would convey what he wished to tell her.

Scooping her up bridal style, he carried his giggling bride out of the garage and into the empty gym.

"Your apartment is all the way up on the second floor!"

"I want to make sure you don't get away!"

In a few long strides he carried her across the floor and up the stairs. He set her down just over the threshold to get her first look at their new home. He'd never brought her up here before, wise enough to know there was no way he could avoid the temptation it provided … and his shame at how little he had done to renovate his personal quarters. The studio was freshly painted and neat, but it was still little more than an office with a bed shoved into the corner.

As of this afternoon, it was a _king-_sized bed, not the twin-long he'd had before. The new bedding was the colors of the Puerto Rican flag which, except for the single star adorning the center of a blue triangle, was the exact same colors as the American flag. It had been the only one available when he'd bought his new bed from the local ethnic furniture store this afternoon. Quite frankly, he _liked _that color scheme. It was why he had stuck with the red, white and blue of his War Bond costume when Howard Stark had created his armor.

"This is … um … interesting," Bernice said, gaping at the garish colors. It appeared his blushing bride was less than enthusiastic about his foray into interior design.

His eyes drifted over to a carved wooden Holy Family which had mysteriously appeared on his bureau while he'd been out, along with candle holders and the most beautiful hand-embroidered scarf he had ever seen. He'd seen them for sale at the local cantina, a traditional Spanish wedding present for a new bride and groom. A gift from Rodriguez? Or one of his other gym patrons who'd helped him carry the mattress and box spring home three blocks by hand as he'd told them his crazy plan to woo the woman of his dreams? On the counter sat two casseroles and a tiny cake from the local bakery with 'felicitaciones' scrawled across the top. A lump rose in his throat. The makeshift family he'd been piecing together out of gang kids, washed-up boxers, and parishioners with no church to worship in anymore had come together to root for his big shot at the gold.

Thank goodness she'd said yes!

"I've got more rooms in the back," Steve said, pointing at two doors that led to a cavernous space he had yet to clear out. "And there are three more floors above us."

"What's wrong with _my _apartment?"

"I don't want to live in the place you shared with your former fiancé."

For the first time, doubt crept into his mind. Not that he'd married her! No! He had _no_ reservations about marrying her. But perhaps he should have given her more time to plan her dream wedding and renovate the living quarters above the gym into something more livable? Having spent so much time in the Army, all he needed was a light bulb and a cot. Bernice, on the other hand, was a woman of good taste. Maybe he should have…

No. Time was his enemy. He was scheduled to deploy first thing Sunday morning and he could not bear the prospect of putting his life on the line for an agency which treated him as little more than a weapon. For years he had served his country, never needing anything more than the American ideal to light his way. No … that was not entirely true. Idealism had gotten him _into _the super-soldier program, but it had been _Peggy _who had inspired him to become more. He needed to look forward to coming home to something sacred so he'd always remember what he was fighting for.

Bernice stepped over to the tiny kitchenette and turned. She looked small and vulnerable, the magnitude of what they had just done settling around her like a shroud. It was _she _now, who was out of time, having indulged an instinct totally alien to her generation. To choose one mate and build a life with them based on nothing but a feeling. He gathered her in his arms and kissed the top of her head.

"I know it doesn't look like much right now," he said. "But it's mine … ours. Once we get the upper floors fixed, there will be plenty of room to start a family."

"We never really … discussed it."

"You said…"

"I _do_ want a family."

He breathed a sigh of relief, thankful he hadn't misconstrued the veiled conversations while dating, that peculiar dance couples did as they sized one another up, discussing things that were important without actually coming right out and _saying _them. It appeared family may have been one of her worries, because the apprehension in dark eyes faded.

"When?" she asked.

"Whenever you're ready."

'_As soon as possible,_' he added in his own mind.

He unwound the scarf which adorned her neck as though he were unwinding a bow from a Christmas present. He nuzzled her ear, a giggle escaping her lips as she melted into him. He led her to the bed, his body growing warm and anxious as she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it aside to bare his chest. He knew, in his head, that the super soldier serum had made his body pleasing to behold. But in his heart, he still remembered what it had been like when women had stared at his scrawny body as though it were repulsive and then looked away. That skinny man still lived inside him, telling him to cover up so that his appearance would not offend.

Her pleased expression as she kissed his chest convinced him otherwise...

He fumbled with her buttons, unable to get them through the tiny buttonholes. It wasn't until he hopelessly toyed with her bra, unable to figure out how to get the silky little wisp of fabric off, that Bernice finally realized what the problem was. She stopped him mid-kiss and searched his eyes.

"Steve … have you … ever …?"

"No."

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Never?"

"You're my first."

He held his breath, afraid what her reaction would be. Her lips curved into a pleased smile.

"I figured you weren't the type of guy to get around much," she said, her expression tender as she caressed his cheek. "But … of course. What else _would _you be?"

Whatever doubts she may have still harbored vanished. She guided his hands to the back of the device giving him so much difficulty, teaching him how to undo the clasp. He kissed the small red mark between her shoulder blades left by the offending instrument of torture, trailing kisses up her spine to the nape of her neck, pushing her hair to one side so he could kiss behind her ear. She moaned with pleasure and urged him to do more.

"Teach me," he pleaded. "Teach me how to make you happy."

He had always felt as if the body the machine had given him with was not _his. _As though it belonged to somebody else, property of the United States government. The only time he ever felt like he owned it was when he pushed it too hard and it reminded him, as his old body had done, that he was not immortal. Or injuries reminded him what it had been like back when his body had still been frail. _This _body had never been used for any purpose other than completing the mission. But now it trembled, the same as his _old _body had done whenever faced with a situation which was a little bit frightening. He was more than a weapon to be aimed at a problem. Why had _this_ body never understood it needed to be touched, the same as the old one had yearned to be touched?

"Your skin is the largest organ of the body," Bernice whispered, her voice husky and low. She splayed her hands across his chest, her dark eyes filled with passion as she traced the muscles beneath his skin. "So much illness could be avoided if people only _touched _one another instead of talking all the time."

The pure sensation of being _touched _nearly overwhelmed his senses. Words died on his lips as he could find none adequate to describe the way she made him feel.

"Touch me," she breathed into his lungs. "I want you to touch me, too."

He followed her example, greedy to absorb everything she was willing to teach him. Time slowed down as she guided him through the steps to become a married man. Joy washed over his body as they merged into husband and wife.

This was the closest to heaven he'd ever felt, even more enticing than the call of the ice which still beckoned to him from time to time, whispering promises of the peaceful silence he had so rudely been awakened from when he had woken up in a hospital room, 67 years out of his own time. Time. How he longed to end his enmity with time! Make friends with the force of nature so that, maybe this time, it would not feel compelled to steal the person he loved away from him?

"I love you," he whispered in her ear as they dozed off to sleep afterwards in each other's arms. "And I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy you agreed to be my wife."

X

He awoke feeling so satiated, he wondered for a moment if he'd died and gone to heaven. Bernice slumbered in his arms, her legs intertwined with his. He reveled in the sensation of skin touching skin, the way her cheek rested above his heart, her chest rising and falling against his. He couldn't remember ever feeling so happy. Bernice had made him the happiest man alive!

One side effect of the serum was that he only needed three or four hours of sleep each night, but the activities of the previous night had left him lethargic, as though he could happily wallow in bed all day. Normally he woke around 4:30 a.m., ran ten miles, helped Rodriguez open up the gym, sparred with his regular clients, then showered and visited Thelma at the local diner. But now he was a married man. He would adapt his morning routine to mesh with hers.

This morning, his definition of 'mesh' included more of what they had done the night before…

He did not wish to wake her, but her cheeks looked so rosy they gave her the appearance of an angel, fallen from heaven and become mortal to grace his wedding bed. It had been a long time since the urge to draw had been strong enough to overcome his restless energy, a side effect of the serum. Usually he could only sit still long enough to draw late in the evening, after he'd exhausted his body physically. But this morning, he wanted nothing more than to sketch the goddess asleep in his bed.

"Be right back, sweetheart," he whispered in her ear.

She mewled in protest as he slipped out from underneath her, snuggling into his pillow as he tucked the covers around her neck and kissed her hair. If this was what husbands and wives did to perfect their relationships, then he planned on doing as much 'perfecting' as possible to make her so happy, she'd _never _want to get out of bed.

He pulled up a battered chair, the pre-dawn light giving the room an ethereal feel, as though any moment the magical creature sleeping in his bed might disappear. He wished to capture the _emotion _of this moment so he could relive exactly how he had felt the first time he had woken up with an angel in his bed. His _wife._

Other sketches of Bernice inhabited the pages of his sketchbook, all done late at night to quell his restless impulse to pound upon her door. He had kept his sketches as clean as he had kept their dates, Father Murphy's lectures about the flesh following the example of the thoughts always foremost in his mind. But God had sanctified their union, giving him permission to be _intimate _with his beautiful angel_. _He sketched her as he saw her now. Rosy cheeks. Lips parted in sleep, full and red. Long black hair trailing across her swan-like neck. The delicate curve of her shoulder. And the softness of a breast peeping from beneath the covers.

He could hear Rodriguez rattling around in the gym below, opening up for the early birds who liked to get in their workouts before heading into work. The sunlight grew stronger, making her _real. _As though she were substantial enough not to fade like the rest of the dreams that had been stolen from him. She was _his _now. And heaven help the person foolish enough to get between him and his wife. She stirred. Sleeping beauty awakening from her long slumber, begging her prince to remind her just how good it felt when a man who loved you worshipped you in his arms. He sketched in a few last details then slipped in behind her.

"Steve?" Her voice was husky with sleep. She nestled into the exact same position as before, stretching like a contented cat as he ran his hands along her soft white skin.

"Good morning, sleepyhead." He nuzzled her ear. "Are you going to get up this fine morning?"

"I see _somebody's _already up." Her lips curved into a smile. Her hand slid down the length of his torso to touch the part of his anatomy clamoring for her attention.

With a growl, he reminded her of just how good it felt when a husband performed his God given duty to put his wife first above all others…

X

_Note: Several readers noted after the last chapter (the wedding) that they thought Steve's boldness at asking Bernice to marry him was OOC. You have to remember, however, they've been dating around 3 months now. Steve noted on the Statue of Liberty (before all hell broke loose) how easy it felt to be around her and he wasn't sticking his foot in his mouth nearly as much as he used to. While Peggy always made it clear he didn't measure up, making him nervous, Bernice enjoys being with him. Also, he didn't just bring her to the church and pop the question, but spent an entire evening leading up to it by introducing her to his past. I felt giving him any more than a token amount of tied-up tongue would be a poor caricature of who Steve Rogers really is. They do it in the comics with a drum-roll/cymbal thing to accentuate the punch line of a bad joke, but that's not the way real humans behave. Especially not humans who lead squadrons of men into battle. Steve Rogers is quiet, thoughtful, and nervous around women because historically they have treated him poorly. But he's not a blithering idiot._

_Be sure to leave your thoughts in the little box below. Reviews make my day!_


	45. Chapter 45

_My appreciation to all the readers who've put this story on their favorites and alerts list and pushed up all those happy little 'reader' statistics. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Rittanicus, Undapper Thoughts, GhibliGirl91, Neverland123, LEPrecon, Penny Tortoiseshell, Katya Jade, JubilationCaliph, La Bella Figura, ace, Kelly Jo, Qweb, Almyra, AndieGibbs09, spiffymac0617, gryffindorgal87, Mystewitch, blown-transistor, **__and __**Adamantium Rose.**_

_Thanks to __**Qweb, **__who pointed out the mortifying (literally) error in the last chapter about my misuse of the word 'decedent' instead of 'decadent.' A 'decedent' is a recently deceased person, as in 'the decedent's last will and testament.' 'Decadent' describes Steve's perception of his new bride as he whisked her home for a little privacy. I really did not mean to write 'he indulged the urge to kiss those DEAD PERSON's lips.' Eeeeww! Wrong fandom! This is not 'The Walking Dead!' Thanks for pointing that out!_

_And thanks to __**Adamantium Rose **__who pointed out some clunky fragments in my exposition. All fixed now (I hope)._

_And now, by reader request, one good ribbing coming up…_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 45

The pounding at the door jolted him out of his sleep.

"What the…" Bernice groused.

Steve stared at the clock. Eleven o'clock? He hadn't slept until eleven o'clock since … he'd _never _slept until eleven o'clock. Not even when he had been a ninety pound weakling. Bernice giggled, snuggling deeper under the covers as he muttered under his breath about strangling whoever was pounding upon their door. All had been quiet below, not even the sound of the gang kids who came every Saturday at ten o'clock for boxing lessons waking him up. Most likely Rodriguez's doing, enlisting the support of his loyal gym clients to beat each other to a bloody pulp _silently _this morning so as not to disturb their honeymoon.

"Would you like me to throttle whoever is at our door?" Steve asked. He grabbed her waist and tickled her until peals of laughter filled the room. A signal to whoever wished to disturb them to go away!

The pounding grew more insistent. Rodriguez informed the interloper Steve was busy and he'd need to come back some other day.

"C'mon … Steve!" a voice said that Steve would know anywhere. "You stood me up. What's wrong with you?"

He and Bernice looked at each other. Oh … drat!

"Tony Stark" they both said in unison.

What happened next would rival any comedy routine Steve had ever seen, the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, and Charlie Chaplin having no monopoly on their panicked expressions as they scrambled for their clothing.

"All right, all right, I'm coming!" Steve shouted.

Bernice flashed him a grin and shut herself into the bathroom, not wishing to expose herself in such a … disheveled … condition to her bosses boss's boss. Steve trudged over to the door to let in his nemesis.

"I am sorry," Rodriguez apologized. "This man he come and I tell him you are busy, but he no take no for an answer."

"It's okay, Rodriguez." Steve shot Tony Stark his most displeased look. "I'll take care of this."

Tony pushed past without being invited in, the cocky bastard acting as though _this _was part of his global empire and not Steve's little corner of the world. Steve suppressed a twinge of anger, forcing calm. A lifetime of getting his rear-end kicked by bigger men simply for looking at them the wrong way had taught him to pick his battles wisely, even though there were now few men on this planet capable of besting him. The reason Doctor Erskine had chosen _him _to be the recipient of his serum, a little man with an even temper, and not some big bully.

"What happened to you?" Tony asked.

"What do you mean, what happened to me?"

"You stood me up!"

"What do you mean, I stood you up?"

"You were supposed to meet me in my office at eight o'clock this morning."

"No I wasn't."

"Yes you were."

"You asked to get together and compare notes on the fishy business going on at S.H.I.E.L.D."

"You never contacted me."

"Did I, or did I not, tell you to check your text messages?"

Steve looked over to where the confounded cell phone had been buzzing like an angry bee. He answered his phone-phone religiously, but most text messages were spam from this internet site he had foolishly signed up for. Twitter. Instead of the latest baseball stats and weather he thought he had been signing up for, every single hour he received dozens of meaningless text messages about rock stars he'd never heard of and baseball players for teams he didn't care about. These days, if it didn't ring, he didn't answer it.

Steve slapped himself in the forehead for his own stupidity. He should have just swallowed his pride when Tony had told him to check his text messages and admitted he had no idea how to program the thing.

"Sorry. I've been kind of … busy."

"Doing what?" Tony gave him an impish grin. "Pushups? It's not like you have a life or anything."

The clatter of something falling to the bathroom floor broke the silence. Steve held his breath, his heart racing like a gazelle's might pound upon realizing it was being stalked by a hungry lion.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

One devilish eyebrow went up as Tony Stark's head jerked in the direction of the bathroom, and then scanned the room. The bedcovers were far too disheveled for someone who had used the bed to get a good night's rest. Dark eyes settled upon a fuzzy pink scarf lurking guiltily on the floor next to a woman's boot. Tony burst out laughing.

"Bernice!" he shouted. "Game's up. No need to protect your prudish boyfriend's honor."

The door cracked open. Bernice peeked out, her cheeks purple with mortification as she finished buttoning her shirt. She scurried into the shelter of Steve's side, her arms snaking around his waist as he put his arm around her shoulders in a universal show of male territorial behavior. _My woman…_

Tony gave him a knowing smirk. Steve could see him composing entertainment at his expense as he silently ran through all the jokes he could make about a 92-year-old virgin finally losing his cherry. He grabbed Bernice's hand and straightened her ring so that the two rings sat side by side. Bernice followed his lead, her smile amused as she tilted her hand to make it obvious. They waited until it dawned on his pain-in-his-neck nemesis what he was seeing.

"Holy shit!" Tony Stark's mouth dropped open as though he were catching flies. "You weren't kidding!"

"No. I wasn't."

Bernice looked from one of them to the other, a quizzical expression on her face. Her laughter sounded like fairy bells rising above the sound of fists hitting punching bags through the open door to the gym below.

"I've got to go freshen up," Bernice said. She stood on tiptoes and gave Steve a kiss. "When you two boys are finished pounding on your chests and peeing on fire hydrants, come get me. If you want me to live here, the first thing we're going to do is see about getting a _proper_ lock for that door."

Bernice grabbed a couple of churros out of one of the casseroles Steve's friends had kindly provided and disappeared back into the bathroom, laughing like a little girl. Steve turned to Tony Stark.

"This had better be good."

Within minutes, Tony briefed him about how he had hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D. and reprogrammed the observation cell so it would not open for Natasha unless one of the other Avengers was also in the room. JARVIS had been silently monitoring the video cameras when the aliens had attacked, automatically instituting a Stark Industries safety protocol to lock down the alien.

"The thing is," Tony said. "Just before the cameras went dead, JARVIS detected a second hacker. They locked him out of the system, but not before he traced their IP address."

"Where?" Steve asked.

"The Pentagon."

X

_Note: Enough mush! It's time to get back to our plot!_

_If you have a moment, don't forget to leave a review in the little comments box below. Finding my inbox full of reviews (even ones that tell me to go back and fix stuff) makes me deliriously happy!_


	46. Chapter 46

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**WantFanFics, mangagirl3535, Marianne Silver, Courtney, GhibliGirl91, Jelsemium, Annie, lazarus73, rozisa, Mystewitch, Qweb, nahrebbs, Penny Tortoiseshell, Arrows the Wolf, Kelly Jo, Adamantium Rose, La Bella Figura, AndieGibbs09, rEdRoSeSiNaUgUst, **__and __**blown-transistor.**_

_I try to answer all reviews personally, but if you don't log in, I have no way to respond to your review directly. So if you didn't get a PM in your inbox before the next chapter, that may be why…_

_One of my readers (who I won't name because they have a valid point and I don't wish to embarrass them) voiced uneasiness about the rating being changed from a 'T' to an 'M.' Although I will be trying to keep this story a soft-M as far as intimacy, that wasn't the only reason I changed the rating. Steve is about to confront Herr Kleiser, a Nazi monster. Some of the stuff rattling around in my head right now is pretty dark. If you are a 16 reader getting subscription notices and think this may be too much for you to handle, please unsubscribe! I really –did- intend to keep this story to a 'T' rating when I started it, but the muses are whispering otherwise. My apologies for the unanticipated ratings change…_

_To __**Courtney, **__who inquired how Steve got his hands on his parents wedding rings after 70+ years. The 'CYA quick!' answer is they were in the box of personal belongings Howard Stark packed up. The real answer is 'this is what editing is for.' This story is being published live as it moves from idea to keyboard each day. I try to keep track of all the plot twists and where things are going so I can drop hints for things 20 chapters in the future, but sometimes an idea just pops into my brain and it's like … 'hey … wouldn't that be great.' So yes … plot hole! Mea culpa!_

_Thanks to __**Marianne Silver, **__who pointed out overuse of the same adjective in an earlier chapter three times in a row. Those are the kind of things you're supposed to weed out on the first edit (never use the same adjective twice in a paragraph!) but sometimes I'm overtired and sloppy. That's why feedback is so valuable!_

_Please note this next chapter is a transition chapter to lay the groundwork for the stuff I've got dancing around in my head now that we're past the big 'STERNICE got married' stuff. Otherwise, we would have more of those wonderful writing phenomenon known as the 'plot hole.'_

_To __**nahrebbs, **__who can claim the distinction of being my 500th reviewer. Wow … 500 reviews? Thanks so much everyone, for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 46

"I've got to go, love," Steve whispered in her ear.

Bernice's eyes shot open, dreading those awful words. Oh, how she had dreaded those awful words, clinging to him late into the night, unable to sleep, until exhaustion had finally overtaken her. He'd gone on missions while they had been dating, casually mentioning he had to go away for a few days and would call when he could. She had seen pictures of the original invasion, grainy security footage from black and white security cameras and fuzzy images shot from cell phones of what he did for work. But that was just some hero on the kid's trading card. Not _her _Steve.

Even after she had begun to develop feelings for him, those images had seemed unreal. As though it were somebody _else's _boyfriend on the videos. Not _her _Steve. It was some _other _Steve. A bold superhero in red, white and blue armor wearing a mask. The man Jacquie had warned her could get any girl he wanted. Not the sensitive, tongue-tied artist with the sad eyes and the even more tragic past.

But then she had stood on the Statue of Liberty and kissed the man she loved goodbye, her birds-eye perch forcing her to _SEE _what he did for work. His impassioned visit to her apartment afterward, battered and wounded, and his declaration of love. Three days his souped-up metabolism had cast him into a near-coma so his body would heal, making her see first-hand he could be hurt as badly as any other guy. The fact that all of a sudden she had so damned much to _lose_!

"Steve, I'm scared." Tears welled into her eyes.

"It's just a reconnaissance mission," Steve said, holding her tight. "The aliens are probably long gone."

"You'll put your armor on before you get there?"

"You have my word."

He should have left right away. Completed his normal routine of a ten-mile run, sparring with whoever was there early enough to help him warm up, and breakfast at Thelma's diner. But he lingered, as reluctant to leave _her _as she was to let him leave. There was a poignant, almost desperate quality to their lovemaking. As though she might not ever see him again. Was this what _all _military wives went through each time they sent their husbands off to war? He had warned her of this before he asked her to marry him. That the life of a soldier was hard. But this was the first time she had ever felt it in her heart.

As soon as the doorway clicked behind him, Bernice curled up into a ball and cried.

X

Steve buckled the jump harness of the C-17 Globemaster and closed his eyes, ears popping as the aircraft heaved itself into the air. All around him, a contingent of Marines changing planes at Fort Dix was hopping a ride as far as Camp Pendleton. Or more precisely, _they _were hopping a ride with the Marines. Their jump harnesses were jammed along the fuselage while, in the middle of the cargo bay, his TAV-8B Harrier II jet as well as some new toys Tony Stark had hybridized with retro-engineered Chitauri technology were strapped to the floor. The aliens had rigged their equipment to self-destruct, but they had underestimated the engineering genius of Tony Stark. And the people he hired.

Like Bernice…

He couldn't help but smile. Bernice. Who would have thought something as simple as saying two little words, 'I do,' would change everything? It felt as though all of the excuses he had made to keep his hopes and dreams realistic so he wouldn't be disappointed in life had suddenly disappeared. She was _his _now. And that knowledge made him not care whether Nick Fury believed there was something fishy about Natasha or the other Avengers thought he was going bonkers. It felt … it felt as though the load he'd been carrying all these years had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders because now he had somebody to _talk _to about it instead of simply staring at the empty wall of his apartment.

They had a lot of flight hours to log between here and Vanuatu, with three layovers in between. At some point _one _of them was going to notice the wedding band he wore on his left hand and start pestering him with questions. But for now, he wanted to prolong his happiness and not share it. The only thing on his agenda between now and Vanuatu was replaying each delicious detail of the past 48 hours in his mind over and over again. _Without _the distraction of explaining. Eidetic memory was _such _a blessing! To not only be able to replay in your own mind what you had _seen, _but also what you had _felt_ while you were feeling it.

"Ah-a-a-a-hem." A voice interrupted his thoughts.

Steve opened his eyes, the smile still playing upon his lips from the memory of Bernice nibbling on his abdomen. He raised one eyebrow at Tony Stark, determined not to get riled by whatever nefarious prank the playboy-billionaire-philanthropist-genius had up his sleeve. The devil himself had been unusually quiet so far this trip, but Steve knew it wouldn't last. In fact, he was amazed the first thing Stark hadn't done the minute he had reported for duty was blab.

"Stark," Steve said, not even bothering to hide the content lethargy which made him want to just sit back and daydream the entire 17 hour journey to Melanesia.

Tony pulled a small red fruit out of a plastic container and popped it in his mouth, tugging on the stem until all that came out was an empty pit. Cherries.

"Would you like one?" Tony gave him an evil grin.

"No thank you."

"Are you sure? I thought you might need a replacement?"

You know what? Steve didn't _care _that Stark was going to spend the next few days making him the butt of bad jokes. He'd never been so happy in all of his life. If they wanted to tease him, so what? He reached into the container, grabbed a handful of cherries, and popped one into his mouth, leaning back and closing his eyes to signal he wasn't going to let Stark get to him.

Tony laughed and moved down the line to share the forbidden fruit with the next victim on his hit list. Bruce Banner.

X

Bernice stared at the dead cell phone. After five hours of calling family and friends, the battery had finally gone dead. Jacquie had been less than pleased. Bernice had promised to meet her train and stay at their old apartment tonight to talk. At minimum, she needed to get fresh clothes for work tomorrow. Her father had been hurt she hadn't waited so he could walk her down the aisle, and her other relatives had expressed surprise she would marry a man she had only known for several months. Uncle Abraham, on the other hand, had not been surprised. He had wished her congratulations and invited her to talk any time Steve's deployments began to eat at her.

There was no way in hell she was going to sit at home, wringing her hands and watching each painful minute tick by. Stiff upper lip had nothing to do with it! If she stayed here, she would go insane with worry. It was time to move on to Plan B. One geek girl superhero sidekick coming up. Ralph and Huojin had most likely spent the weekend holed up in the lab, quantifying her nutty theories of video game soldiers and war horse ships, and she couldn't wait to see what the dynamic geek-duo had come up with.

At the very least, it would make her feel like she was _doing _something to keep the man she loved safe and not just sitting home waiting for him to die…

X

"Why wasn't I told we'd be picking up a contingent of Marine's for this mission?" Natasha demanded.

"After the cluster fuck that cost us the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy," Nick Fury said, his expression so calm it appeared he wasn't aware the Black Widow was suppressing the urge to bury one of her pretty shiny little bling blades into his ribcage, "the Department of Defense decided they wanted a full battalion to sweep the island along with us. Just in case. So we don't bang up their brand new pretty little warship."

By brand new pretty little warship, Fury was referring to the U.S.S. America they had boarded several hours ago. The latest generation in amphibious assault ships, a strange hybrid between the ships which had stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-day and miniature aircraft carrier. Steve had initially wondered why the government would fund development of an amphibious assault ship that didn't have a well deck to launch troop carriers, but a tour of the America had alleviated that concern. Hidden deep in the belly of the ship was a _submarine _well deck that had not been advertised to the public, so that troops could sneak up on coastlines completely unseen. For all his trouble getting his cell phone to stop tweeting him the latest fashion blunders of some singer named Lady Gaga, if technology had a _practical _application, Steve had no trouble grasping it.

Now they had to figure out how they were going to transport the claustrophobic Bruce Banner in one of the pretty little submarines stowed in the belly of the ship, brand spanking new and still having that new car smell, without his anxiety causing him to transform into his alter-ego, the Hulk. They'd settled upon slipping him a low-grade mickey before he boarded the submarine. Just enough to make him lethargic, but not enough to put him to sleep in case they needed the Hulk to make a quick appearance.

But anyways, this time, it wasn't Steve's problem to figure out the logistics. Fury had placed Natasha in charge, alleviating him of responsibility to be anything but an ordinary, run-of-the-mill superhero. Like Tony Stark. Oh … the pleasure of having no worries except for just showing up and punching out the lights of the bad guys!

"This is a _reconnaissance _mission!" Natasha gestured angrily gestured angrily at the battalion of 600 Marines cheerfully assembling and dissembling their M-17 rifles. "How the hell am I supposed to be stealthy with … those … those … _Jarheads_?"

"They're going to be storming the southeast part of the island," Nick Fury said as patient as a preschool teacher speaking to a toddler. "Near the Yashur volcano. Hardly anybody lives there. It's a good 20 klicks from where we surprised the aliens at Lenakel."

Steve watched the goings on from where he was seated on top of the duffle bag carrying his armor. They hadn't thought anything amiss when they'd hopped a Black Hawk to Fort Dix to catch a transport cross-country with the Marines. It was an important deployment hub for _all _branches of the military, and one of the few with regular cargo flights capable of carrying his TAV-8B Harrier jet. When they'd boarded a C-5 Galaxy at Camp Pendleton with an additional 600 Marines on board bound for Hawaii, they'd thought nothing of it. But when those troops stayed on after refueling, the Avengers had begun to give each other questioning looks. And now Nick Fury had hustled them … and the Marines … onto the U.S.S. America. A pretty little warship so fresh out of dry dock it still had that new car smell.

"I have a mission to coordinate," Natasha said. "I don't have time to babysit the jarheads."

"Don't worry," Fury said. "I've assigned a babysitter to keep them out of your hair. They can divert attention to the backside of the island while the Avengers conduct the _real _search."

"Who?"

"Commander Rogers," Fury said as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "He's the only member of this team still technically enlisted in the armed forces. Rogers will be the Avengers-military liaison."

Steve's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Him? How come nobody had told _him _that? Steve shot Fury a questioning look and was frustrated when the S.H.I.E.L.D. director did not so much as glance his way.

"He's _Army,_" Natasha snapped. "The Jarheads don't answer to anybody except another Marine."

"Da Russkiya," one of the Marines leaned over and whispered in Russian loudly enough to the other Marines for all to hear. "Ana slishkom mnoga govorit."

The Marines burst out laughing. Natasha scowled, her cold blue eyes scanning the room trying to figure out which one was the heckler. Babysitting and rank had nothing to do with it. The Marines were balking at being led by a former Russian spy with no regular military experience.

"You boys have a problem with that?" Nick Fury called out.

"No, Sir!" the Marines shouted with one voice.

"The boys are just hankering to go kick some ET butt, Sir," one of the Marine officers said. "Don't mean no harm."

"Aaaoh Raah!" the Marines agreed.

"He _is_ whatever the Joint Chiefs of Staff _say _he is," Nick Fury said to Natasha. He pointed to the Marines. "This is _their _ship. Not S.H.I.E.L.D.'s. _Our _ship was shot out of the sky, in case you forget, and the U.S.S. Gerald Ford has not finished undergoing repairs. If we want to play with the Marine's toys, we're going to have to follow _their_ house rules. "

Steve glanced over to where Clint sat in the midst of the Marines, silently watching all that transpired. The archer looked up and made eye contact across the hanger, his expression unreadable. Clint had been acting strange ever since the incident on the Triskelion. Were he and Natasha on the rocks again? It was always so hard to tell since, until Natasha had been struck down in Melanesia, he hadn't even been aware their relationship was more than just colleagues. Clint looked down. Nataasha looked across the hanger at Steve this time and made eye contact. Steve shivered. That was one cold lady.

"-_I'm- _in charge of this operation!" Natasha said, shooting Steve a dirty look. "I want you to make it clear to the Jarheads, and that includes Steve, that they are to defer to _me _in all matters. Not him. He's only acting as liaison."

"Let Steve keep the jarheads out of your hair," Nick Fury said. "It will allow your guys to do the _real _work."

_Your guys._ The implication was not lost on Steve. So much for getting handed command of a battalion of Marines. But truth be told, these days Steve was feeling less and less like one of the Avengers and more and more like one of the regular enlisted men. Just another mushroom being kept in the dark and fed manure. I mean … look at him? He didn't have a robotics suit. He wasn't a god with a mythological weapon. He didn't turn into a big green man whose powers of regeneration could withstand anything but a nuke. And he lacked the cold-blooded instinct to kill without question that both Natasha and Clint brought to the group. He was a little bit stronger and faster than the average soldier and could throw a shield. Whoopie…

At least he could _relate _to the enlisted men. During World War II, commanders had personally led their troops into battle. Even four-star generals such as Old Blood and Guts. These days, most sat in command centers halfway across the globe and barked orders via satellite. It was impossible to understand what conditions were really like on the ground if the leadership didn't get their hands dirty. Steve could see why the Marines wanted _him _in charge. He'd earned a reputation for putting _himself _front and center during battle, like a medieval king of old, and not barking orders from some ivory tower.

"What if we get attacked?" Natasha asked.

"I thought you said this was a wild goose chase?" Nick Fury said, his usual scowl softening into a bemused expression. "Look. We both know ET is long gone. But if they _do _show up, the Marines are looking for an excuse to take them on head-to-head. They're the only branch of the military who wasn't in position to kick some alien ass the last two times we were attacked."

"Fine!" Natasha snapped. "Just keep them the hell away from my search area! I spent a lot of time setting this thing up!" Her fist opened and shut a though she were suppressing the urge to pop Fury right in the face. "And tell the iceman over there that this is _my _show to run. Not his. _He _reports to _me."_

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Nick Fury said.

Steve tried to corral Fury for questions the moment he veered off from Natasha, but the S.H.I.E.L.D. director disappeared. Was he being sidelined? Or did he have a legitimate reason for being here? Why had they even waited for him to heal up before deploying?

With nobody to ask questions, Steve fell back upon the training instilled in him by the military. If he was going to lead these men into possible danger, then he needed to get to know them. Spying the Marines commander, Steve cut across the hanger to more formally introduce himself. He spent the next several hours going from platoon to platoon, getting to know each platoon leader and introducing himself to the enlisted men. He briefed them on everything he knew about the aliens, including the peculiar delay many of the aliens exhibited when surprised or Bernice's suspicions that an edge could be gained by hunting the aliens from many angles at once like a wolf pack rather hitting them head on.

He quickly disabused the men of any idealistic notions they may have harbored that the Avengers were saviors. 'Superhero' was a term the media had coined. The Avengers were simply a Special Forces unit with cutting edge toys. He impressed upon them _their _contribution to be made to this mission. Sweeping the island, looking for suspicious activity, and asking the locals if any of their villagers had begun acting strange.

Leading extraordinary, everyday soldiers into battle. It was what Steve felt most comfortable doing. No catering to super egos involved! How he missed the command he had been given back in 1945! Tony Stark and Thor circulated with the enlisted men, slapping backs and telling off-color jokes. Banner quietly introduced himself to the medics and compared the latest theories on triage. Clint, meanwhile, hadn't moved. Silently watching as though he were a raptor scanning the grass for a mouse.

Many hours later, Steve plopped back down on his duffel, anxious to get a little rest before the USS America reached Tanna. He looked up to see Thor picking his way through the crowded hanger, greeting each soldier he crossed paths with, vigorously shaking hands, telling stories and slapping them on the back like a golden retriever puppy. The enlisted men were not aware Thor was _the _Thor, who felt more at home amongst the uber-macho culture of the Marines then the sneak-and-peak S.H.I.E.L.D. He finally made his way the rest of the way over to Steve and held out small, portable lunchbox.

"Tony Stark sayeth this is a gift for thee," Thor said. "Though he sayeth if I must know the occasion, I am to ask thee about it."

Steve glanced over to where Stark and Banner were speaking to a cluster of Marines. This would be the fourth cryptic 'gift' Stark had sent his way, most passing right over Steve's head until Stark came by to drop an off-color comment to enlighten him. Stark _had _been tormenting him, but for some reason, he had yet to spill the beans to the other Avengers. Toying with him? Like a cat with a mouse?

"Thanks," Steve said. He opened the flat styrofoam box, which was cold.

"What manner of fish be these?" Thor asked, his forehead wrinkling up in a combination of confusion and disgust.

Steve gave him an enigmatic smile and glanced over to where Tony Stark watched from a cluster of Marines, his black eyes twinkling with mischief. The box was cold. Inside was a half-dozen freshly shucked oysters on the half shell, a wedge of lemon and tiny packet of hot sauce included. Thor wrinkled his nose up at the briny odor of fresh oysters.

"Oysters," Steve said.

Steve may be naive, but even _he _knew the symbolism of _that _gift. An aphrodisiac. Just like the last four little gifts Stark had sent his way. Chocolates. Artichokes. And a box of bananas. You know what? He wasn't going to let Stark's teasing get to him. It was time he learned to roll with the punches. He held up an oyster as though he were lifting a glass of champagne for a toast.

"Cheers."

Steve slurped down the oyster. Tony Stark grinned. Thor gave him a quizzical expression.

"Here," Steve said, handing him an oyster and the bottle of hot sauce. "It's a Midgardian right of passage. Before you go on any … uh … manly pursuits. It makes you more … uh … virile."

Thor slurped down the oyster as though he were leading the gods of Asgard into an epic battle, grimacing as the slimy booger-like substance slid past his tonsils. He hid his disgust well, immediately holding up the empty shell with a victorious expression as though he had just slain a dragon. In short order, they finished off the briny treat and Thor moved on to other pursuits.

Steve reclined back onto his duffle bag of armor and closed his eyes, tuning out the sound of the 600 Marines who surrounded him. Tony Stark, as much as he was enjoying needling him, seemed to understand he wanted to hold onto his own private little happiness like an oyster hanging onto a pearl, keeping it wrapped up in a hardened shell and hidden from those who would steal its wealth. The _same _way Steve had kept his hand protectively curled around his wedding band this entire trip so nobody would see it. Not out of shame! Oh … god! He was so proud of Bernice it felt as though his heart would burst with happiness! But … it was hard to explain. It was _his _happy little secret. Nobody else's. He wanted to hang on to the afterglow of the joy she had given him for as long as possible.

Bernice. His little pearl…

Maybe if Time wasn't aware he'd cheated it and stolen some happiness, it wouldn't try to steal it from him?

X

X

_Notes: As Bernice is realizing how heavy a burden she has just assumed by becoming Steve's wife, Steve is relishing the happiness of finally having somebody walk that path with him. It is a burden –all- military family's carry. If you know the spouse of an active service member, please give them a hug!_

_Q: Why does Tony Stark keep teasing Steve with food? A: Watch Iron Man 2 (omelette, strawberries)._

_If you watched Iron Man 2 and speak Russian, actor Mickey Rourke's/Whiplash's unscripted Russian language ad libs were actually quite hilarious. 'Vie slishkom mnoga govoritche' means 'you talk too much.' The second-person feminine of that would be 'ana.' The Marines don't want to follow Natasha because they're aware she's a former Russian spy and has never had the kind of military leadership experience that Steve has._

_The –real- USS America is nearing completion in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The officially released photographs and blueprints do –not- show a submarine well deck, but isn't a little fishy Congress would authorize billions of dollars for an 'amphibious assault vehicle' for the Marines that had a well deck but no back door to then –launch- Marine troop landing vehicles? After all … that's why they're called 'Marines.' You can view a nifty diagram of the USS America (including the suspicious pink well deck with no back exit hatch) and what she's capable of carrying at:_

_w w w . globalsecurity military / systems / ship / lha-6-schem . htm_

_(close up all the spaces)_


	47. Chapter 47

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __** 86, Mystewitch, blown-transistor, Bellarase, Emma, Courtney, Rittanicus, Adamantium Rose, gryffindorgal87, rawrrawrblacksheep, AndieGibbs09, LivelyStevens, LEPrecon, Arrows the Wolf, Qweb, Kelly Jo, Marianne Silver, Penny Tortoiseshell, Jelsemium, GhibliGirl91, **__and __**WantFanFics.**_

_Sorry this chapter took so long to post. Setting up battle scenes in foreign locations requires a ton of research. If I botched something, shout it out! Wikipedia can only get you so far._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 47

"Eagle One, this is Base," the Marines regular commander called from back on the USS America. "Request visual confirmation of all submersibles."

"Base," Steve said. "This is Eagle One. All Force Recons have landed."

Having a Harrier jet hovering above Sulphur Bay while scuba-gear clad Marines emerged from submarine transport vessels and swam to shore undid the entire point of having submersibles in the first place. But as far as the Marines were concerned, this was a training exercise. The chances of finding a 67-year-old alien stronghold were slim. Even if they _did _find something_, _the aliens had likely cleared out after the battle that had taken down the USS John F. Kennedy. But Marines did war exercises every year, and doing it here, where there was a chance of a legitimate threat, instead of the defunct naval base at Pago Pago, made sense. The Vanuatian President had given his consent after receiving a phone call from President Obama.

"Eagle One," the Marine commander called. "Request confirmation as soon as Force Recon has engaged the target areas."

"Roger, that is a ten-four," Steve called, glancing towards Waesisi Bay and the beach at Ombous, where a second and third Special Forces unit of six Marines each was doing the exact same thing. "Force Recons are fanning out. Let me check with Avengers and confirm they're ready to roll out Phase Two."

Below, the Force Recon Two squadron leader pulled off his flippers and walked up to an elderly man standing on the beach with a fishing pole, watching Marines erupt from the ocean like creatures from the black lagoon. The man seemed more perplexed than concerned. The squadron leader shook hands and handed him some trinkets. Vanuatu was a peaceful, but poor nation. When Steve had toured here with the USO in 1942, the most efficient way to win local support was to give 'cargo,' small gifts. A candy bar. A watch. An old pot without a lid. Other than the fact there were a few more houses on Tanna than back in 1943, not much had changed.

"Base, this is Eagle One," Steve called. "Force Recon has engaged all targets."

There was nobody in the jet to hear Steve laugh. Putting the locals at ease was the _opposite _of what the Marines usually did, but these people were friendlies … they hoped. The goal was to bribe a local to warn others to pay no mind to the men running around their beaches with helicopters and guns. He hit the broadcast button on the second frequency he was monitoring. The one reserved for the Avengers.

"Black Widow this is Captain. Ready to roll out Phase Two. Any issues?"

"Just keep those Jarheads away from my target!" Natasha snapped.

"Jarhead?" Tony Stark called over the Avengers frequency. "Who you calling a jarhead?"

"I could detect no presence of heads shaped like jars on the Midgardian warriors," Thor answered. "I found their countenance to be quite pleasing."

"You are to maintain proper radio decorum at all times!" Natasha said. "All of you!"

"Yes, Ma'am," Steve said. He hit the broadcast button on the _first _frequency he was monitoring. "Base, this is Eagle One. That is affirmative. Repeat. Affirmative. Permission granted to roll out Phase Two."

While _he _was overseeing a mock D-Day exercise on the remote southeastern side of the island, where volcanic ash from nearby Yashur volcano discouraged settlement, the Avengers were quietly targeting villages where the locals had reported an influx of 'cargo.' As had happened in 1942, the quickest way to rout out Japanese, or in modern times alien, sympathizers was to recruit the neighbors to report all suspicious influxes of material goods. 'Cargo.' Stuff that had come from someplace else. Only now, the 'someplace else' was extraterrestrial in origin. Technology just a little too advanced to be from Earth.

"Eagle One," the Marine commander called. "Ospreys are in the air. Request permission to launch Sikorskys."

Steve hovered to confirm the Recon Force units were stowing their scuba gear.

"Launch," Steve called. "Vehicles are to spread using roads north and south-west. Avengers request aircraft avoid due west. Repeat. Avoid due west."

"Roger," the Marine commander called.

Within minutes, eight dual-rotor Osprey MV-22B's appeared, each carrying a platoon of 32 men. Ospreys were a peculiar bird. They could take off vertically like a helicopter, then tilt their dual wing-mounted rotors forward to fly long distances like an airplane. As soon as each Osprey reached their designated drop area, they opened their rear cargo doors and released their paratroopers, immediately heading back to the USS America. Overhead, two F-35B Lightning II fighter jets provided air cover while the paratroopers floated to the ground, searching for enemy weapons fire. There was none, but it was their job to make sure it _stayed _that way.

A safe distance behind them flew three Sikorsky CH-53K heavy transport helicopters each carrying a jeep. The Sikorsky's delivered their cargo to the three Force Recon units which had come in via submarine. The Force Recon units, consisting of six men each, piled onto a jeep and took off towards their designated search areas.

The paratroopers landed. Each platoon had been assigned to search a different sector surrounding the Yashur volcano. The target had ostensibly been chosen because it had few locals to rile up, but the _real _reason, Steve suspected, was that the alien base on Ambryn had been found in the lava tubes of that island's active volcano. Having _both_ X-marks on his 67-year-old map end up on the only two islands in the New Hebrides chain that also had active volcanoes was too much of a coincidence. Count Rugen, as he'd been dubbed, required a much higher ambient temperature than humans did. A volcano could provide that heat.

"Force Recon is on the road," Steve announced. "Send in the Vipers."

AH-1Z's were a skinny little helicopter that was light on luxury and heavy on guns. Their job was to provide air support for the parachute-dropped infantry now humping through the underbrush, but since this was a training exercise, the Vipers would pull back when the platoons approached villages so they didn't frighten the locals. If the aliens appeared, the Vipers would be there in a heartbeat.

He listened to the chatter on both frequencies simultaneously. There were a few minor hiccups getting helicopters pulled off the flight deck of the USS America and stowed in time for the next chopper to land, but Base was in charge of that. He, himself, needed to land his Harrier jet twice to 'hot fuel' it with the engines still running and make quick trips to the facilities and get a bite to eat. Meanwhile, bickering between Tony Stark and Thor about the three inland villages they'd identified as having suspicious 'cargo' coming up empty reassured him nothing so far was going on. The Avengers spread out, using the modified gliders to get around, while Banner went directly to the village they'd initially been attacked to check on the well-being of the locals.

Marine ground operations proceeded with only a few minor hitches. With the sun dipping towards the horizon and no sign of extra-terrestrial life, it was almost time to bug out and go home. A fruitless mission as far as hunting aliens was concerned, but at least the Marines had gotten to break in their pretty new warship. Steve, on the other hand, would likely be reassigned to a less 'strenuous' duty than coordinating the Avengers. And you know what? It was a bust in rank he was looking forward to. With a beautiful new wife, a business to run, ties he was forming in the community, and for the first time in his life hopes of starting his _own _family, maybe he'd just retire from the superhero business completely? It was _his _body! Why should he put his life on the line for an agency that treated him like dirt?

"Commander Rogers?" a call came in from a Force Recon unit on the ground. "This is Recon Two. We've … ah … got something."

"Recon Two," Steve said. "This is Eagle One. What's your situation?"

"Some crazy old man is claiming a messiah named John Frum comes down from the volcano looking for religious converts," Recon One said. "He said they took his son a few weeks ago and when he came back, it was as though he was possessed by demons."

The hair stood up on the back of Steve's neck.

"Recon Two, what's your position?" Steve asked.

"Village called Namakara, Sir," Recon Two called. "Around three clicks northwest of the lahar stream."

Steve glanced at the display depicting a map of the island overlaid with their objective targets. On _this _side of the island. Closest to where they had initially landed. He flipped the transceiver over to broadcast that information on the Avengers frequency and hesitated, listening to Bruce Banner filling the others in on the results of his trip back to the village on the opposite side of the island where they had initially encountered the 'possessed' Melanesian islanders. So far, Banner had encountered nothing. Nor had the others. This was the closest thing to a lead they'd had so far today. He flipped the broadcast frequency back to the Marines channel.

"Recon Two," Steve said. "Ask him if he noticed an odd delay in his son's reaction time any time something unexpected happened."

"Yes, Sir," Recon Two called. There was a few moments of silence. "Sir … I'm having trouble understanding the man's dialect. It's a pidgin of French and English. But … yes … the old man said sometimes it seemed as if the son didn't know what to do."

"Ask him if the son has blonde hair," Steve asked.

"That was one of the first questions I asked, Sir," Recon Two said. "Affirmative. Dark skin. Blonde hair."

"Are there any others in the village with similar symptoms?" Steve asked.

"The old man says nearly one-quarter of the village has been possessed by demons," Recon Two said. "Some disappear and never come back. Most have blonde hair like his son. But a couple of the missing villagers don't have it."

The bit about the blonde hair made no sense. But then again, neither had the delay in the alien's reaction time until Bernice had come up with a theory nutty enough to explain it. He was supposed to inform Natasha, as leader of the Avengers, that they had a lead.

"Base," Steve called. "Did you get all that."

"Yes, Sir," the Marines commander replied. There was a pause. "Eagle One. We … ah … met our frontline objectives for Operation D-Day. Request permission to … uh … commence our secondary training exercise. Operation Port Cros."

A chill ran down Steve's spine.

"Please repeat?"

"Operation Port Cros, Sir," the Marine Commander said. "I repeat. Operation Port Cros. We are to commence our secondary training exercise. Operation Port Cros."

Port Cros. One of the first missions Steve's Special Forces unit had engaged in after he'd freed the 101st Airborne from Red Skull's fortress. The American navy had surprised two German destroyers off the small Mediterranean Island of Port Cros. They destroyed the German ships, but were called away on a more urgent mission before they could search the island. The presence of two ships on an island that made little sense strategically, however, was the first confirmation they'd gotten that Steve's marks on a map drawn from memory may have some merit. They had stormed the island and found five small Hydra forts with advanced weaponry. It had been his first proving ground that a small unit of highly-trained men could be more effective at routing out an enemy base than an entire brigade.

Had Stark pulled strings after realizing the Pentagon had a mole? Or was this suspicion on the part of the Marines after seeing how badly S.H.I.E.L.D. had botched the incident in Melanesia? Or maybe he had underestimated Nick Fury? With one known mole in his midst, his entire PsiOps division deceased, evidence indicating there were _more _moles passing information to the enemy, and now the Pentagon, itself, compromised, who do you trust? The operative you've known for years? Or some guy you just thawed out of a block of ice who's having problems adjusting to the modern world? What was a low-man on the totem pole like Nick Fury to do?

Lure the suspected mole off on a wild goose chase and stick the guy you _really _want to replace him with in charge of a unit of men capable of completing the mission…

Gabriel Jones. Nick Fury had told him, just before he'd looked right into the surveillance camera and told him that his own debriefing report from World War II had omitted mention of shape shifters, that he'd served with Gabriel Jones in Vietnam.

"God!" Steve pounded his hand on the dashboard of the Harrier jet. "I am _so _… darned … _stupid!"_

There hadn't been a single one of them alive back in 1945 who'd understood the Nazi SS was really the frontline of an alien invasion, sent in to infiltrate an existing government and manipulate its resources to do their dirty work _for _them. It was Sun Tzu 101. But like Peggy, who'd been bothered by the fact Red Skull's invasion map had not made sense logistically from the standpoint of Germany, Howard-educated Gabriel Jones had been smart enough to see there had to have been _something _going on they hadn't figured out yet.

And he had passed that suspicion along to his protégé, Nick Fury…

The Marines, more so than all the other branches of the military, were trained from the bottom up to complete their objective using whatever means necessary, no matter what. If all hell broke loose, there wasn't a soldier on this island who didn't know the _real _mission was to shoot aliens. Or who hadn't studied the _original _Operation Port Cros in Special Forces Expeditionary Training and knew it meant the surprise revelation of enemy bases on an island. He flipped the broadcast channel on the radio to the Avengers frequency.

"Black Widow," Steve called. "What's your twenty?"

"Seventeen clicks west-northwest of the Yashur caldera," Natasha said. "We're following up leads in the canyons. There's a lot of caves here."

Okay. Whatever they were looking for, it was likely _not _in the quadrant of the island where Natasha was focusing the Avengers search. So far, the team had come up empty-handed. And where was Nick Fury? It was unlike him to disappear during a mission such as this. Fury had purportedly been deployed to play nice with the Vanuatian President, who was less than pleased American forces were storming one of his island-states. Fury was usually the _last _person the State Department wanted to go play diplomat. Where was Fury, really?

"The Vipers want permission to do some canyon runs," Steve called over the Avengers comm. "Scrape the green off the gills. Would you like some air support?"

There was silence at the other end of the line. Steve waited. He could almost _hear _the noose tightening around Natasha's neck.

"Banner is playing doctor in a village six clicks north from here," Natasha said. "It's already been cleared. Send them there."

Okay. So the aliens were smart enough to avoid the village where they'd been first exposed. Rule out that sector of the island as well.

"Will convey to Base," Steve called. He flipped the broadcast channel, able to hear both frequencies simultaneously, but only able to talk on one. He wondered if Natasha was doing the same. Or Clint. Clint had been acting strangely ever since the attack on the Triskelion. Unusually silent, even for _him._ Was he compromised as well? What about Banner? Unlikely. The Hulk defied all attempts at control. Stark? No. Stark was his usual cocky self. Thor? Impossible. Thor had been acting like … Thor. That left Natasha and possibly Clint as moles.

He chose his next words carefully, positive the Marines commander was running through the _exact _same analysis of 'who's the mole' in his own mind. Only _Steve _was not above suspicion, either. If Fury had trusted him completely, he would have briefed him on the _real _mission and not simply left orders for the Marines commander to use veiled references to obscure missions to test him for gaps in his knowledge. Battles. The Marine commander had 67 years of recent military history over him. What battle could Steve use as a code word that would be in the lexicon of a military commander from 2012 to warn him of his suspicions without tipping off a Chitauri eves dropping on their frequency? Or Natasha?

"Black Widow says it's a go for Vipers on Green Man's village," Steve said, praying the commander was up on his more distant military history. "The villagers appear to be sleeping in. But the Crow say it's the biggest native village they've ever seen. They're changing out of their uniforms and putting on native dress."

There was silence on the other end of the radio.

Morse code. Scrambled. A sub-code which hadn't been used in nearly 70 years. Steve understood the command. He changed frequencies to the one indicated and hit the button to flip the wavelength filter from the _lower _carrier wave to the _upper _one. The exact opposite of how the signal was _supposed_ to be transmitted in this frequency band. It would buy him perhaps one, maybe two minutes of communications before anyone monitoring figured out why they were reading a signal but couldn't understand it. It was radio technology so old and primitive most modern people scoffed at it, and were therefore slow to pick up on the devious uses to which it could be adapted.

"Eagle One," the Marine commander called. "What the hell are we walking in to?"

"I have no idea," Steve said. "Someone in our group is compromised. Perhaps two people. We have our suspicions, but no proof."

"You're damn lucky I studied Custer's last stand," the Marine commander said. "How many hostiles do you think we're talking?"

"No idea," Steve said. "But I suspect if you ask that old man to take you to where this so-called messiah has been leading his missing people, all hell will break loose."

"What if you're wrong?" the Marine commander asked. "For all I know _you're _the one leading us on a wild goose chase while Moriarty slips out the back door."

"What if I'm right?" Steve asked.

There was silence at the other end of the frequency while the Marine commander coordinated with the captain of the USS America and whoever else was in on the game plan. With two missing Leviathans, the America was the first ship they'd aim for if they shook them out of their hiding place.

"What are you suggesting?" the Marine commander asked.

"Have Recon Two follow the old man," Steve said. "Move the Vipers around the back as though they were headed to Green Man's village, but dawdle in the closest canyons. Signal the others to stand by. If I'm right, all hell will break loose the minute we get too close."

"What about Recon Two," Command Two asked. "I'm not sending them up that slope without air cover. It's nothing but ash."

"The Mole wants me gone," Steve said. "If I fly in ahead of your men and land, hopefully it will spook the aliens before your men get too close. It will give them a chance to head for cover."

More silence.

"Switch back to frequency-alpha," the Marine commander said. "If we're going to pretend we're walking into the Little Bighorn, we want to do it with trumpets blaring so ET knows we're coming."

Steve switched back to the primary Marines command frequency. The one they were all using.

"Recon Two, this is Eagle One," Steve called. "It's probably nothing. But we're about to wrap up Operation D-Day and let the flyboys have a little fun running the canyons. Why don't you take a stroll up the volcano with grandpa and get some snapshots of you and your boys standing on the rim? It's like Old Faithful. It shoots off a few sparks and a little smoke every few hours."

"Photographs?" Recon Two asked.

"Yeah, photographs," Steve said. "It will make the locals feel like you took their concerns seriously. It's either that, or I can call in the Ospreys to come pick you up now?"

Steve had hiked up the Yashur volcano when the USO troop had come through before, enjoying time away from the giggling USO girls who had been all over him like flies and the soldiers who had teased him about his 'pansy' red, white and blue stage costume. A local kid had been eager to play tour guide, thrilled to get his first ever ride in a jeep. The kid guided him down roads which were little more than a goat-paths to the summit of Yashur. The mountain was actually quite small. Little more than a hill. But the crater looked down into an active caldera which erupted like clockwork three times per day. He'd thanked the kid by giving him some spare change and one of his 'Buy War Bonds' propaganda posters with a picture of him in his costume which, back then, hadn't even been armor.

"Yeah, sure." Recon Two's voice was tight and tense. He understood that Steve was asking his unit to be bait. "We'll go for a walk. Humor the old guy. It will give us a chance to pick up some souvenir rocks for the wife and kids."

If there really _were _aliens monitoring their frequency, and they would be fools _not _to monitor if there were any still here, they would know they were at risk of being exposed. There was no way Steve was going to send good men into harm's way without being there to back them up.

"Recon Two," Steve said. "I'll meet you at the summit. Got a postcard I want to mail from the post office box they say is at the foot of the volcano. Should be plenty of room to land in that nice big empty ash field."

"Ten-four." Relief was audible in Recon Two's voice. "It's a date."

X

_Lahar:__ an unstable area of volcanic ash prone to landslides during flash floods. Because the ash is extremely acidic, nothing will grow there to stabilize it._

_Battle of Port Cros:__ Port Cros was one of the earliest special forces missions assigned to the 'Devil Brigade,' the world's first Special Forces unit. Most of the battles briefly depicted in the Avengers movie and the makeup of the soldiers in it are based on the 'Devil Brigade,' who were a mixed American/Canadian unit. You have to remember that the original Captain America comics were published while these successful raids were going on in real life. If you google Devil Brigade and go to the Wikipedia website, the battles they list will appear eerily familiar to Avengers movie fans._

_Battle of the Little Bighorn__: General George Custer ignored warnings from his own Native Crow scouts that the Sioux encampment at Little Big Horn was the biggest they had ever seen and there –had- to be far more than the 800 hostile fighters the US Indian Bureau had reported Custer would be facing. The scouts were disturbed because there were so many women, children and ponies, but no braves. Custer dismissed their reports, claiming the 'braves' were only sleeping in while the women and children did all the work. The Crows saw it coming, changed out of their cavalry uniforms, and asked to be dismissed when Custer refused to listen. Custer's last stand is one of the biggest military blunders based on the failure of intelligence and refusal to incorporate new intelligence in recent military history._

_Single Sideband__: a special setting on a radio dial to cut a carrier wave in half during broadcast to increase the distance that signal can be transmitted. The signal becomes clearer, but takes on a 'tinny' sound as though you are talking through two tin cans. If you ever watched the reboot of Battlestar Galactica and noted the pilots funny voices when speaking on their radios, that is what single sideband sounds like. Using the 'wrong' half of a suppressed wavelength during transmission such as Steve did to throw off potential listeners is a 'no no' for precisely the reason they used it that way. It will only buy you enough time for somebody to figure out the reason they can read a signal, but not hear it, is because some idiot used the wrong wavelength suppressor on their radio. A well-trained radio operator familiar with the trick will pick up on it fairly quickly, but one less familiar with the technology might never figure it out. It's not quite the use of Morse code in the movie Independence Day, but it's another trick a man from 1945 might use to adapt primitive technology to outwit a more technologically advanced opponent._

_Yashur Volcano__: has been in continuous, low-grade eruption for the last 800 years. It is very small, barely more than a small hill. You can hike up the cone to watch it's 3x/day eruptions and even mail a letter at the post office box located at the foot of the volcano. You can see pictures of both the volcano, and the post office box, at:_

_ journals +dot+ worldnomads +dot+ com / funkczar / photo / 11942 / 331606 / Vanuatu / The-Volcano-Post_

_(close up all spaces and replace +dot+ with '.')_

_Take note of the second larger 'hump' next to the active cone of the volcano. _

_Don't forget to drop your comments in the box below! I love to hear from everybody, especially those more knowledgeable than me when I'm outlining a military operation!_


	48. Chapter 48

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Zekkers, OCDgirl326, the real vampire, Beloved Daughter, Qweb, Jelsemium, Arrows the Wolf, chelseymyranda, Adamantium Rose, Courtney, gryffindorgal87, goldenpuon, LEPrecon, Guest, Marianne Silver, Pocket Bug **__and __**Kelly Jo.**_

_Special thanks to __**Guest, **__who pointed out my Chapter 46 had been overwritten by Chapter 47 in time for me to put out a desperate call for help to my readers…_

_And super-duper extra special thanks, accolades, and gratitude to both __**OCDgirl326 **__and __**Pocket Bug, **__who both fortuitously downloaded a copy of this story to their e-readers before I accidentally overwrote Chapter 46. I wrote and reposted a –new- version of that chapter, but it lacked the immediacy of the original (and now that I have it in my hands, I can see what I wasn't able to recreate). I tend to live in the moment along with my characters as my stories unfold, so going back to rewrite a chapter can be like trying to go back to your high school prom and relive it. You kinda sorta remember the big picture, but a lot of the tinier details get lost because it's just a memory... I will now go back to it and try to reconcile the two versions._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 48

Bernice stared at the clock. Three forty-five. Ten minutes since the _last _time she had looked at the clock. She looked at her watch, hoping the clock in the laboratory had stopped and it was really time to go home, although she wasn't looking forward to _that, _either. Where _was _home? Her old apartment, which Steve had made obstinately clear he did not wish to live? Or the sterile flat he'd carved out for himself, only the red, white and blue of his down comforter giving the place any color? She looked at the clock again. Three fifty. One hour and five minutes until she could blow this joint and go _home _to stare at the clock, instead. Waiting for Steve to call her.

She checked her cell phone to make sure it hadn't rung when … when she had sneezed? No missed calls. He'd warned her he might not be able to call until they got the mission finished, but waiting was _killing_ her!

"Look look look look!" Huojin laughed. "Look. Here it is again!"

"Brain fart!" the engineers cheered.

Every engineer in the Stark Industries advanced weapons development group huddled around Ralph and Huojin, throwing in their two cents while they searched alien videos for 'flinches' and 'brain farts.' Flinches were when something triggered a deeply rooted survival instinct that caused an alien to suddenly cast off whatever program was controlling it and, just for a second, act confused. As though it had suddenly woken up and didn't know where it was. Flinches tended to happen more often with the lower brain function Leviathans. As though the animals had only been needed to be trained to act as warships and not have their higher brain functions completely overwritten.

Brain farts, on the other hand, were when a higher functioning Chitauri drone got conflicting information, often because one human came to the aid of another. Something in their program didn't seem capable of processing that act. Brain farts were accompanied by the peculiar two and a half second delay. It was as though their brains seized up with conflicting commands until some baseline function hit the CTRL+ALT+DEL button inside the creature's heads.

It wasn't foolproof, of course. Sometimes Leviathans had brain farts, and sometimes Chitauri drones flinched. But overall, it _did _seem like there was a quantifiable pattern to the alien's behavior now that they knew what they were looking for. They even had one incident where a Chitauri flinched when a mother turned on a drone that had been about to attack her young son. The mother hit the alien with a taser, shocking it. After overcoming the jolt of electricity, the alien had gotten down on one knee and reached towards the child.

The others swore the alien had been reaching to finish the child off, but Bernice was the only one who knew of Steve's attempts to reach out to Count Rugen through his art. She could swear to god the creature had recognized the child was, well, _a child_. Was this what had happened with Count Rugen, Steve's alien friend? Unfortunately, a passing National Guardsman shot and killed the alien, so they would never know what the creature's intention had been. But it made Bernice wonder. Given the right set of circumstances, instead of killing the drones or triggering whatever kill feature caused them all to drop dead, maybe they could somehow simply awaken them?

She looked at her watch again. Four fifteen. Forty five more minutes until she could bow out of this three ring circus. Although Ralph and Huojin had given Bernice credit, the conversation amongst the engineers was now so technical it surpassed her capacity to follow it. Ralph and Huojin were disheveled and wearing the same clothes they had been wearing when she'd left Friday afternoon.

Had it _really_ only been three days? God. In three days she had gotten married, known more bliss than she had ever felt in her life, known more sorrow than she had felt since the day her mother had died, and now felt so anxious it felt as though she were about to burst.

She looked at the slender golden ring on her left hand. The only tangible thing she had to remind her that she hadn't just awoken from a dream. Nobody here had noticed. And after the third degree she had gotten from Jacquie and her family, she had opted not to volunteer the information. At least not today. Let Huojin and Ralph have their moment in the spotlight. God only knows the two had earned it. She'd just been the one to notice a pattern. _They _had done all the work.

So much for geek girl superhero sidekick…

X

The clackity-clack of the subway as it pulled out of the station left Bernice staring forlornly down the darkened tunnel. She had gotten off this station a couple of times, always on a Saturday morning when it was full of happy people off to enjoy their day off at the park or wherever else people went on Saturday mornings. Like most subway stations on the fringe where the Lower East Side of Manhattan turned into the more industrial Far East Side, it had the tattered appearance of a mangy dog. Graffiti with gang insignias covered the walls, leaving less actual wall space than paint. The concrete floor was stained with lord only knows what substance and reeked of urine. Scattered on the benches were street people, moving from station to station to avoid the late-November cold as the MTA police told them to move along.

The street had an ominous feeling as she stepped away from the buzz of yellowed fluorescent lights, her suitcase dragging behind her like an anchor. It wasn't really all that late, just after 7:00 p.m., but this close to the winter solstice it got dark at 4:30 p.m. Some of the store fronts had colorful Christmas lights highlighting merchandise they wished to sell, but most had already closed for the day. Iron bars pulled across storefronts to prevent vandalism conveyed far more clearly than any gang graffiti ever could that this neighborhood was a hostile place to those who wandered around unwary. Cold bit at her neck and fingers, making her wish she'd worn her heavy winter coat instead of the fashionable pea coat that was only adequate for the first chill of autumn, not the winter weather which had rolled in over the weekend.

Why had she come back here? She should have just swallowed her pride and spent the night with Jacquie. But they had said some hateful things to one another last night, Jacquie upset she would ditch her to find another roommate with no notice. Looking at things from Jacquie's perspective, Bernice couldn't blame her. When it had been _her _in those shoes after Mike had dumped her, Bernice had been afraid she would end up in the street, unable to afford rent. She had been lucky Jacquie had been willing to move in with her. She'd promised Jacquie she would continue paying her share of the rent until she found another roommate, but money really wasn't the issue. Bernice had been seeing Steve for months and hidden the truth from her best friend.

_It's classified..._

Bernice had grown up in a family where those two horrible words were a final ultimatum on what could, and could not, be discussed. Jacquie didn't understand. Even now that Jacquie had caught an eyeful when Steve had showed up at their apartment last week wounded and still wearing his Captain America battle armor, Bernice couldn't enlighten her as to why her husband of two whole days had just abandoned her to fly to the other side of the planet.

A figure stepped out of the shadows, reminding her she was supposed to pay attention in neighborhoods like these to what was going on around her instead of sinking into her own thoughts. She stepped to the furthest corner of the sidewalk, trying to skirt around the shadowy figure before he could get any closer.

"Bernice."

Bernice looked at the shadow figure, eyes wide with terror. She increased her pace, moving as quickly as she could dragging a suitcase without breaking into an outright run.

"Wait."

The bright lights of Pankration gleamed at the end of the block like a beacon, the only building in the neighborhood that was well-kept, well lit and free from iron bars. Rodriguez and the other gym customers would still be there, the gym open to 8:00 p.m. on week nights. Should she drop her suitcase and make a run for it?

"Get away from me!" Her heart raced as she began to run.

"Bernice! It's me!" the shadow called. "Mike. Please! I have to talk to you!"

Bernice stopped. Trembling. And not just from the cold. This was not the Mike she had once loved, but a creature with a dangerous, desperate edge. His eyes were wild, as though he were a wild horse who had spotted a cougar, as he approached her as though he were approaching an adversary.

"A-are you s-s-stalking me?" Bernice stuttered. He was dressed weird. In one of those dark hoodies and puffy down jackets with a sports team logo on it like the gang kids liked to wear, as though he were trying to fit in down here so he wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. _Not _the upscale dress Mike usually preferred.

"No, please, Bernice," Mike said. "We need to talk."

"We have nothing left to say."

"You don't understand."

"I _do _understand," Bernice shouted, her terror of a moment ago transforming into anger. "You dumped me a year ago almost to the day without so much as a second glance. And now that your hot little piece of law firm tail isn't turning out to be everything you thought she would be, all of a sudden you want back into my good graces?"

"That wasn't why I broke things off," Mike said. She could barely see his face, so dark was the street where they spoke and the shadows cast by the hoodie, but she could hear the emotion cause his voice to warble.

"It doesn't matter," Bernice said. A year's worth of hurt feelings and anger boiled in her veins as, finally, she found the voice to say what she had really been feeling all this time. The words Jacquie had told her again and again over pints of Cherry Garcia and more boxes of tissues than she cared to admit.

"It doesn't matter _what _you have to say. You think I don't know you dumped me because I wasn't good enough? Well guess what? I don't care! I don't care if I'm good enough for you, or the partners at your law firm, or anybody else. Because you know what? _I'm_ good enough for me! Got that? Me! I'm good enough for me!"

Mike stepped back as though he'd been punched. Bernice moved away, her spine ramrod straight as she tugged her suitcase and began to pull it towards the gym.

"Bernice, please," Mike called. "That's not why I came. Please. Just hear out what I have to say."

"What?" Her nostrils flared as she glared down at him as though she were Lady Justice herself, pointing the sword of truth at somebody she had found lacking. Mike gestured towards the gym.

"You've got to get away from this guy," Mike said. "You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into."

Bernice leaned back, arms crossed. So we were back to that, were we? Like it or not, Steve had to maintain his cover and she needed to make sure nothing … or no one … she brought into their lives put that at risk. The price was too high … for Steve … if his cover was blown and he needed to sell his gym and relocate all because someone had blabbed. The poor man had finally begun to settle into someplace after getting ripped out of his own time and dropped into hers. She tapped her foot. Waiting to hear what rubbish Mike had say so she could humor him and get him the hell out of her hair.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Whatever he's into," Mike said, his voice a whisper. "He's into it deep."

"Oh," Bernice said, highly amused. "How so."

"I hired a private investigator to follow him," Mike said. "The cops told him to back off. Or else. God only knows how deep this thing goes. He's got the biggest gangs in town at his beck and call, and a couple of dirty cops. I tried digging into his past, but until last year this guy didn't even exist! He's a frigging ghost!"

"You might say that." Bernice's hand tapped on her forearm, waiting for him to finish so she could get on her way. "Anything else you think I need to know."

Some part of her registered the cell phone buzz in her pocket. She reached in to get it, but Mike grabbed her arm.

"Don't you get it?" Mike shouted. "He's Al Qaida or something! Has to be. You don't just get a whole fake background manufactured out of thin air like that unless there's big money someplace hiding behind it. You've got to stop thinking with your pussy and start using your brain, Bernice!"

Bernice only hesitated for a moment, just long enough for her brain to ask '_did he really just say what I thought I heard him say'_ before she slapped him.

"We're done here," Bernice said, her chin jutting out the same way Grandma Peggy's had done every time she put someone back into their place. She turned and walked away, dragging the suitcase behind her.

"I'm not done with you yet," Mike shouted.

"Oh, yes, you are done!"

Mike grabbed the suitcase and yanked the handle out of her hands, dropping it upon the ground. He grabbed her arm, tugging her towards the alley.

"You and I are going to go someplace where we can talk."

"Like hell!" Bernice shouted. She kicked at him, trying to break free. He was twisting her arm. And hurting it.

Shadows erupted from the walls of the alley. Dozens of them. Mike froze as the Dominicans Don't Play gang sauntered around him like a pack of wolves on the hunt. All of a sudden, Mike was no longer an alpha male, or even the beta, but prey. Out of the light of the street, they were little more than playthings for the _real _predators in this neighborhood. The gangs. These weren't the thirteen and fourteen year olds Steve mentored at his gym, trying to steer them towards a better life while they were still impressionable. These were the hard cases. The kids with crosses tattooed on their fingers indicating how many men they had killed or stabbed.

"Whoo-whee," the leader whistled. He sauntered up to Bernice. "What do we have here? A little lover's quarrel?"

Bernice gave the gang leader a look her grandmother would have been proud of. Fierce. And unafraid. Only _she _knew it was a crock of shit. Her knees were shaking. But she kept it from showing as she neither glared, nor flinched, at the leader of this gang. What was it Steve had said about them when she'd asked why he bothered taking the time to mentor the younger kids? Gang members were like a pack of dogs. The only way to deal with them was to treat the alpha with respect, but show no fear or the pack would be all over you tearing you apart.

"My _friend _was just leaving," Bernice said, forcing her voice to remain even and calm.

"He didn't look too friendly," one of the other gang kids said. He made strange hand signals to the other gang members that Bernice recognized as a type of sign language, but could not understand it.

"Naw, he kinda looked like he was trying to drag you into this back alley and have his way with you," the gang leader said. "Didn't it, boys?"

"Yeah," several of the gang members said. They closed ranks around the leader as though from some unspoken symbol. The wolf pack closing in for the kill.

The leader grabbed Mike by the throat of his hoodie, twisting it as he lifted him up onto his tiptoes and got right into his face.

"You leave Steve Rogers wife alone," the gang leader hissed. "You mess with her, you mess with the Dominicans. You got that?"

Several gang members made a motion as though they were stabbing someone in the gut. For the first time, Bernice recognized the skinny shadow that had been hovering inches from the leader of the gang. Lupe. The skinny kid Steve had been mentoring on how to use the still rings and gymnastic equipment to build up his body so he wouldn't get pounded on in the boxing rink by the bigger boys, who all outweighed him.

"W-w-wife?" The look of betrayal in Mike's eyes as they met hers was priceless. That _same _look of betrayal that had once been in _her _eyes the day he'd told her she wasn't good enough and kicked her to the curb.

Bernice smiled. She pulled off her glove and held up her left hand, the slender, precious symbol of Steve's love for her shining in the dim light of the alley like a beacon of hope. She held it in front of her as though it were Steve's Captain America shield. Fending off the unwanted attentions of a man she simply wanted _gone_.

"We got married," Bernice said, her voice dripping with venom and honey. "Some men like to _plan_ a wedding. Others … just do it."

Mike's mouth opened and shut like a fish.

"Go on!" the gang leader said, releasing his grip so Mike nearly fell. "Get the hell out of here. Before I change my mind and shank you just for the hell of it."

Mike backed out of the alley, staring at her standing there dressed like Jacquie Onassis in her pretty little pea coat and beret, the gang kids guarding her like junkyard dogs a strange juxtaposition in this run down old neighborhood. She waited until Mike turned tail and ran before turning to the gang leader to thank him.

"Thank you, um, I'm sorry. I didn't get your name."

"Vasco," the gang leader said. "Lupe's my little brother."

Bernice turned to Lupe and gave him a smile. For reasons only _she _knew, Steve had taken a special interest in the kid. Teaching him how to stay calm so he wouldn't have so many asthma attacks and helping him line up medical care at the local clinic to get an aspirator, which the kids mothers' insurance didn't cover.

"Steve's done okay by my little brother," Vasco said. He made a hand signal to the other gang members. As if on cue, they began to fade back into the shadows from which they had come. Vasco shrugged. "Lupe's not like me. He's real smart. Steve said if he can keep his nose clean, maybe he'll help him get into college. Make something of his life."

"You can _all _make something of your life," Bernice said. "It's just a matter of choice."

Vasco gave her a crooked, regretful kind of smile. The kind someone gave you when you had just given them bad news and then tried to say something hopeful. Like when a doctor told you that you had cancer, but then tried to convince you a 30% survival rate really wasn't all that bad.

"I've done time," Vasco said. He shrugged. "Twice. Even if I get all straightened out, no one's going to hire me. But Steve said we can be like Batman and shit. Patrol the neighborhood, make sure our little brother's don't get fucked with while he helps them learn to take care of themselves and shit the _right _way. We … I don't know. I figure it can't hurt nothing. Steve's okay."

"Thank you," Bernice said. She held out her hand for Vasco to shake. Vasco looked at her a moment as though it were a trick, then took her hand.

"It's real nice meeting you, Miss Bernice," Vasco said. "Lupe's had a lot of nice things to say about you. Welcome to the neighborhood."

Vasco backed away, never turning his back on her, until he faded into the shadows completely and disappeared. Junkyard dogs. Made wary by a life that had shunted them aside and given them the shaft. But even _they _had hope. If not for themselves, then for the ones that weren't so hardened that maybe they could make it out of here. For the first time, Bernice truly understood why Steve was so determined to help these kids, even though it caused his business to dip into the red ink.

Bending down to grab her suitcase, she made her way to the shining beacon that was Pankration. Steve's monument that anybody, even a gang kid, could be more. It wasn't until after Rodriguez had helped her carry her suitcase up to the apartment and closed the gym down for the night that she remembered to check her cell phone for messages.

"Damn!"

At least she had Steve's voice to listen to over and over again until she fell asleep, telling her that he loved her.

X

_Don't forget to drop your comments in the box below! Good, bad, indifferent, or wishes, I love to hear from everyone!_


	49. Chapter 49

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**warrior princess 122, GhibliGirl91, WantFanFics, Jelsemium, Courtney, Justsuzaku, Mystewitch, Arrows the Wolf, Katya Jade, Qweb, mythwriter, Adamantium Rose, OCDgirl326, La Bella Figura, Kelly Jo, Beloved Daughter, LEPrecon, AndieGibbs09, **__and __**gryffindorgal87.**_

_To __**Jelsemium, **__who pointed out Mike shouldn't have been able to dig up Steve's past that easily. Well … yeah! Of course not! But then I wouldn't have a credible plot device to pull my minor villain into the story without having him steal the show. Let's all just pretend the P.I. that Mike hired was really, really good…_

_To __**Mystewitch, **__who had to live with nothing but voice mailbox messages like Bernice when her husband was deployed…_

_Special thanks to __**Adamantium Rose **__and __**Katya Jade, **__who made some helpful suggestions to help me clean up some clunky exposition. Thank you both! Hopefully it's a little smoother now…_

_After numerous requests to post my research information –before- people read the chapter so people can picture things I describe, but not wanting to put too many spoilers for those who don't want it, I've decided to start posting my research on Facebook as I'm writing each chapter. I set up a special author sub-account so I don't spam people with every dancing kitten link that I 'like.' If you log in and then hit 'like' you'll get teaser updates as I'm writing, or you can just go before or after the chapter if you want to see more information. And since I listen to music as I write, I'll try to post a link to THAT as well so it will be like you have a soundtrack to each chapter. The link is:_

_w w w . facebook pages / Anna-Erishkigal / 203837383044945?ref=hl_

_[close up all the spaces … or search Facebook for Anna Erishkigal, author]_

_(beige logo account … red logo account is where you get spammed with obscure ham radio lingo and dancing kittens)_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 49

Steve banked left, circling the caldera of Yasur volcano. Unlike Ambryn, which was a triangular-shaped island with the stereotypical cone and lava tubes located in the center of a lofty mountain, Tanna's volcano was little more than a big black sand dune. The kind of hill Jack and Jill might have climbed to fetch a pail of water. Except for the trail of smoke, it was a bump in a flat plain of black volcanic ash. Make that two bumps. A second hump squatted a few thousand feet from Yasur with no caldera in the center of it. Mount Tukosmera.

He searched for evidence of a cave or lava tube where the Chitauri might hide. Nothing. To his east, Recon Force Two broke out from the underbrush with the jeep the Sikorsky had dropped earlier and began driving across the flat volcanic plain. There was not a living thing in sight to provide cover should all hell break loose. On the other hand, there was not a living thing in sight, period. Including aliens. There was nothing to do but land his jet and perpetuate this little farce.

"Base," Steve called into his radio. "Think I'm going to take this baby down and stretch my legs."

"Roger," the Marines commander called. "Have you cleared with Avengers commander?"

Steve switched broadcast frequencies on his radio.

"Avengers Command, this is Eagle One," Steve called. "We're about to wrap this little show up and put a bow on it. Any problems if I land this thing and snap a few photos of our local friendly volcano?"

"Yes, it's a problem!" Natasha said. "The locals can see you flying up there from miles around. You are to …"

"Sorry, Avengers Command," Steve said, switching the secondary channel on his radio to a frequency immediately below the one occupied by the Avengers and hitting broadcast. "I seem to be getting some unlawful interference on this frequency. Come again."

"Steve, you are to…"

"Avengers Command," Steve said. "I can't hear you. I'll need to coordinate with Base Command." He switched the original frequency back to Base, who he knew was monitoring both frequencies. "Base. This is Eagle One. I'm having difficulty reaching Avengers Command. Were you able to hear what she had to say?"

"Eagle One," the Marines commander called, a hint of amusement in his voice. "We're getting the same interference you are. The carrier deck is swamped right now and you're due for fuel. Why don't you set that baby down the first safe landing site you can find until we get our incoming planes sorted out?"

"Roger," Steve said. "Will do."

Some evil little part of his subconscious caused him to smirk, much the same way Tony Stark always smirked whenever he was told to do one thing and manufactured an excuse to do the opposite. Black ash flew everywhere as he tilted the V/STOL to aim the engines straight up and down instead of horizontally to land the fighter jet.

The most memorable feature about a Harrier jet was its ability to take off and land vertically. Like a helicopter. It was a task the Harrier did well, unsurpassed until the F-35B Lightning II's carried by the USS America had been engineered to do the exact same thing. It was old technology … dating back to 1966. Probably why the Air Force had been willing to relinquish one of its two-seater training jets for retrofitting to replace the P-51 Mustang he had flown back in 1945.

He began the shutdown sequence of the engines, watchful for danger. Nothing. Yasur was as reliable a volcano _now _as it had been when he had first visited this place back in 1942. Before the military had figured out a more practical use to put his enhanced physiology than selling war bonds. In a way, Yasur was like _him._ You knew by the smoke and a periodic show of sparks it had the potential to be a lot more destructive, but it chose to sit there quietly, a steady source of amusement for those who wanted to gawk and say 'look … a tame volcano.'

Talk about tame! There was even an official post office box located right at the base of the cone!

While waiting for Recon Force Two to cross the ash plain, he decided to climb the cone. It was little more than a big black sand dune, perhaps a few hundred feet to the summit. He looked down into the crater which, now that the sun was beginning to go down, had the reddish glow of something dangerous lurking beneath the surface. No visible caves. Nothing. He had just led his team halfway across the world on a wild goose chase, including an entire battalion of Marines.

He touched the cell phone sitting in his pocket, the temptation strong. What the heck? His goose was cooked so far as the Avengers were concerned, anyways. Bernice lagged 12 time zones behind him, facing a day filled with hope in contrast to the lackluster day _he_ had already lived. He'd been unable to get through to her last night, only able to leave a message telling her he couldn't wait to get back to see her. Darn. No bars.

Wait! One weak bar… Not a strong enough signal to make a telephone call, but perhaps enough to send her a text message?

Ugh! Only Bernice ever inspired him to use the accursed technology. Half the time the gang kids stood in his class, thumbs glued to their cell phones as though it were flypaper, texting each other back and forth in the same room rather than just _talking _to the person standing right next to them. He had finally banned the use of them during class, the whole point of bringing kids from rival gangs together being to get them to _talk _to one another and hash out their disputes in the boxing ring. But texting Bernice was a practical use of the technology. Whenever something had a practical application, Steve figured out how to use it. He typed out what he wished to say and hit the 'send' button.

As Recon Force Two pulled alongside his jet, Steve jogged down the gentle slope to greet them. While the six-man unit bore that watchful posture Marines assumed whenever they walked into potentially hostile territory, Steve could see by the discouraged slope of their shoulders that they had assessed the likelihood of finding their quarry and come to the same conclusion _he _just had. A dead end.

"Commander Rogers," the Recon Two leader said, his face reddened from a day's worth of tromping through villages and sun. The patch on the MSOT leader's chest said 'Grady,' while the bars on his arm said 'captain.' The exact same rank Steve had been granted when he'd led his first raid on one of Red Skull's fortresses.

"Captain Grady."

Steve greeted the rest of the men, using the name patches and rank-insignia the military outfitted all soldiers with so that commanders like him could easily identify and utilize the men under his command without actually _knowing _them. Steve recalled meeting these men earlier during the layover to get here and briefing them about the alien situation. The Marines didn't seem too impressed with him _now. _He turned to the local man, a dark-skinned, dark-haired man perhaps in his early fifties. While not old by western standards, a life of hard physical labor had aged him prematurely, giving his skin a much older appearance. His physique, however, was anything but old. Those same hard conditions had left the local Melanesian Islander as hard and fit as the Marines he guided.

"What's your name, Sir?" Steve asked.

"Pisiv," the man said.

"Can you show us where this John Frum character took your son?"

"No John Frum!" The man emphatically shook his head. "John Frum, he leave Tanna before I born. He go get cargo, bring back for people. This man who come, he _say _he John Frum. Bring cargo. But I not fooled. Real John Frum bring cargo, ask for nothing in return. This false god … he take our souls."

"Can you show us where, exactly this John Frum came from?"

"There." Pisiv pointed at straight at the summit of the volcano where Steve had stood only moments before.

"There?"

"There. John Frum live there."

Grady, the Recon Two leader, gave Steve one of those frustrated shrugs you might give after being cornered by a crazy homeless lady in a New York City subway station.

"I was just up there, Sir," Steve said. "There was nobody there."

"You call wrong," Pisivi said. "To get John Frum to answer, you must send message. John Frum come to _you."_

"How?"

"There." Pisiv pointed to the robins-egg blue post office box with the worlds 'Volcano Post' written on it, a large white sign planted into the ground next to it with disclaimers stating the local post office was not responsible for whatever happened to anybody nuts enough to climb an active volcano just to mail a letter. There was a small shelter built around the box, the type you might find around the map inside the entrance to a national park, but some earlier eruption had singed the palms off the roof.

One of the Marines, Vasquez, twirled his finger around his ear in a universal symbol of 'cuckoo.' The others gave Steve a bemused look.

"At least we get to mail home souvenirs to our kids," one of the Marines said, Washington was his name.

Pisiv looked frustrated that they weren't taking him seriously. He might be an older man with a limited education, but he didn't appear to be crazy.

"Can you show us?" Steve asked.

"Legend say you must post letter asking John Frum to come to you," Pisiv said. "John Frum come down from Yasur, come find you. But I smart. I know not the _real _John Frum. When Jean Raul, my son, he come back possessed, I follow him up here. Go real slow so he don't notice me. You go slow, no make sudden move, the possessed don't notice you behind them. Jean Raul have key. Open box. Then walk up volcano and disappear. Not come back for many days."

"He went _inside _the volcano?" Steve asked.

"Is small path down," Pisiv said. "Very dangerous. Anybody try, gods tell you they displeased. Send fire to burn you. But when Jean Raul go down, volcano no erupt. It stay quiet until after he disappear."

"Show us."

"I no have key," Pisiv say. "Or I go get son myself. I think he throw self into vent when he go down into cone, no can see no more. Hold funeral and everything. Then he come back four days later … possessed. Like he no know how to act half the time."

The Marine's elbowed each other, having a hard time believing the old man's story. Steve knew better. He gave the lower-ranking Marines a 'knock it off' look.

"I want you to pull that box up from the ground and see if there's anything special about it," Steve ordered.

"Messing with the post office is a federal offense," Vasquez said with a grin.

"This ain't America," Captain Grady barked. "Get moving."

Within moments, the Marines had pulled the box out of the ground and were staring at what had _appeared _to be a log post until it had been pulled out of the sand.

"There's wires here, sir," Washington said.

"Well I'll be," Vasquez said. "This here be one of them high tech email boxes, I guess."

"Now what?" Captain Grady asked. "Phone home?"

"Break the box open," Steve said. "There has to be some sort of switch."

A few bashes from an M-17 had the box open in short order. They flipped open the lid and searched inside. Up on the very top of the back of the box, right where the post had been attached, was a small button. Steve pressed it.

"Now what, Sir?" Washington asked.

"We climb down into the volcano and see what happens," Steve said. He turned to Pisiv, the local man claiming he had lost his son to demons. "Sir, if you don't mind, I'd feel a lot safer if you stayed in the jeep until we checked things out."

"Jean Raul go to another village," Pisiv said. "Not gone in volcano no more. I have no wish to meet volcano gods." He ambled back to the jeep, content to sit and wait.

"C'mon," Steve said. "Let's go see if we're chasing ghosts or have a solid lead."

The Marines demeanor as they climbed up the cone was much more tense than when they'd walked into an empty ash plane and been told an ordinary post office box was a direct channel to god. There was no electricity up here. No buildings. Not even an electronic eruption monitoring station, which would have at least made sense. The wires coming out of the post office box were even weirder than the post office box itself. But if you wanted to hide, why not hide in plain site?

"Base," Steve called as they hiked up. "This is Eagle One. We found a suspicious device buried in a post office box. We're going to follow up on it."

"Did you say mailbox?" Base called.

"Affirmative," Steve said. "The old man said the box was some sort of communication device to let you climb down into the volcano. We cracked it open and found a button and wires going into the ground."

There was a moment of silence on the other end.

"Eagle One," Base called. "Go ahead and investigate. Let us know if you find anything. I'm going to have the birds perched on the edge of the runway, ready to go if you need them."

"Roger," Steve called.

The volcano was quiet, only a light stream of smoke coming out of one of the three vents. The volcano hadn't erupted since he'd climbed out of his jet, but he'd see it shoot off sparks several times today and had gotten a close look at it erupt back in 1942. Mistaking Yasur for a 'tame' volcano would be a mistake. They climbed to the very edge of the cone and looked down a steep slope that looked like a sand dune eroded by the tide.

"We're supposed to climb down that?" Washington asked.

"Whatsa matter, Marine?" Vasquez said. "You suddenly turn into some kind of pansy?"

"Then _you _climb down it!" Washington said. "I ain't afraid of nothing I can shoot at, but volcanos are something else."

"I don't know where I'm a gonna go," another Marine sang the old Jimmy Buffet song. Garcia. "When the volcano blows."

"I'll do it," Steve said, glancing at the other Marines. "I'm not the kind of commander to order others to do what I'm too chicken to do myself."

Garcia dug a rope out of his pack and unwound it to tie around Steve's waist, just in case he lost his footing and took a tumble off the step sides of the cone into the hot ash, or heaven forbid, one of the vents below. Washington and Vasquez wound the rope through their waists like a winch, as though they were trees, and bent at the knees so they would be more stable. Captain Grady stepped forward.

"I'll do it, Sir," Captain Grady said. "You're the only one who knows what's up with that whole fishy business about the aliens having spies. If anything happens to you … you're just too valuable."

Steve nodded. Captain Grady was right.

"Ain't _none_ of us chicken," Vasquez said. "Except maybe for Washington over there. His Mama made him join the Marines before he got rid of all his milk teeth." Vasquez's words were tough, but his eyes were fearful. This was a force of nature they were dealing with. Not an enemy they could fight. The Chitauri had known what they were doing when they had plunked down a contact station right in the caldera of an active volcano.

"We draw lots," Washington said. "All of us. Me too. I didn't say I was afraid to do it. Only that I wasn't going to go crawling down into some active volcano without a reason."

Steve decided maybe it was time to enlighten the men about the stakes. If this particular unit was compromised, the enemy already knew they were here. If not, the men had a right to know.

"The base we found at Ambrym had hundreds of beds," Steve said. "Right in the volcano. The aliens had six little kids in that facility. Drilled wires into their brains and hooked them up to some sort of machine. We think there may be a similar facility here. Whatever they were hiding, it was important enough for them to station three Leviathans to protect it. Even if the aliens are long gone, chances are they left _some _clues behind."

"The old man said his son was taken only a few weeks ago," Captain Grady said. "And that others have recently disappeared. That means there's still an active threat on the island."

The Marines nodded agreement. There was a good reason the President said 'send in the Marines' to the really tough expeditionary missions. They weren't ones to shrink back from a threat. Especially not a Recon Force unit such as this.

There were no sticks or blades of grass anywhere to pull lots. They finally ended up snapping the filter off a bunch of Camel cigarettes and using _those _as straws. Washington drew the short cigarette. With a shrug, he strapped on his flak helmet and wound the rope around his waist. Making a quick sign of the cross, he began to climb down the side of the caldera down a steep, narrow path that was only visible if you were looking for it. The smoke began to get thicker.

"Washington!" Captain Grady shouted when Washington disappeared underneath an overhang. "What do you see?"

"There's some sort of door down here, Sir," Washington shouted, only his voice audible from the caldera. "It's got some sort of outer blast door covered with black sand and rock to make it blend in. It looks like it just slid open when we hit the button on the mailbox."

"Come back up," Steve shouted. "I'm going to call in reinforcements."

"Base, Base, this is Recon Two command," Captain Grady called, already on it. "We've found something. I repeat. We've found something."

"Wait a minute," Washington shouted. "I see something just inside the door. It looks like…"

A horrifying scream floated up from the caldera.

"Washington, Washington!" the Marines shouted. Vasquez yanked on the rope and fell backwards, rolling several times down the outer slope of the volcano until he regained his footing. The rope came up. Cut.

The others aimed their M-17's down into the mouth of the volcano, clicking almost in unison as they locked and loaded. The volcano began to rumble.

"Go go go go!" Captain Grady shouted. He gestured for the others to follow him down into the caldera to see what had happened to Washington.

The entire volcano began to shudder, an ancient beast awakening from its slumber. Loose ash tumbled down the side, like grains of sand sifting through the neck of an hourglass. Bits of pumice bounced off their helmets, tiny hail-like sparks burned through their uniforms anyplace it wasn't at least two layers thick.

"Recon Two, Recon Two," Base shouted over the radio. "What's your status?"

A pillar of flames shot out of all three vents of the caldera, bathing them in larger sparks. A millisecond later, one of the vents exploded, raining molten pumice the size of softballs all over them.

"That thing's going off!"

Flames began to shoot out of the three vents at once. He had seen it go off like this the last time he was here … from a safe distance. The local kid had seemed to know the volcano's schedule and made him wait a couple of hours after one such eruption. The thing had gone off shortly before Steve had landed the Harrier jet. It wasn't anywhere near due. If their suspicions were correct, the whole thing was some sort of elaborate hoax.

A very deadly hoax. Yasur was definitely an active volcano. Only the timing of the vents could be a hoax. The aliens must somehow be able to control when it erupted to cover their activities while simultaneously giving an excuse to shuttle supplies up the mountain. Cripes! There was even a road right up to almost the top of the cone!

"Eagle One!" Base shouted over the radio. "What the hell is going on there?"

The floor of the volcano split open, shooting sparks everywhere.

"Get the hell out of here!" Captain Grady shouted.

"What about Washington?" Vasquez shouted.

"It's too late!" Captain Grady shouted. "Get the hell out of here. We've got a civilian in the jeep."

"Go!" Steve shouted. "I've got the jet."

The entire mountain began to buck, an enraged rodeo bull attempting to shake off a rider. The Marines ran towards the jeep, shouting at the old man to get the thing started up. The old man didn't waste any time, ready to tear out of there the moment they got there.

"Base, base," Steve shouted. "Yasur is erupting in a big way. I repeat. Yasur is erupting. I think the aliens are somehow able to control it."

A pathetic wail came from down in the belly of the volcano. Washington?

"Base, this is Eagle One," Steve shouted into the radio. "We've got a man down. Repeat. We've got a man down. Washington. I'm going down to get him."

"Negative," Base shouted. "Get the hell out of there. Repeat. Get the hell out of there. That's an order."

A phrase Natasha seemed fond of floated into his mind….

"You're not in charge of this operation," Steve said calmly into the radio. "I am. I'll call you as soon as I airlift him out of here."

Thank god he had that fancy, newfangled armor Tony Stark had made for him after they'd thawed him out of the ice. The one he hated because it looked like that fabric the ladies like to wear. Spandex. How he missed his old armor which had been, well, armor. But one of the things Stark had bragged about this newer version was that it was flame resistant.

Saying a prayer to whatever god had thought it would be funny to wake him up from a 67 year sleep, Steve pictured getting home to the woman he loved as he climbed down into the belly of the volcano.

X

_Note: And there … I'm going to leave you all until I have a chance to write the next chapter! _

_Don't forget to leave your comments in the little box below. _

_And sign up for my Facebook author page and hit 'like' if you want to receive images and links of whatever nefarious plot point I'm working on for the next chapter. This chapter's images include Yasur volcano, Yasur volcano erupting, a Harrier jet landing, the post office box, and music by Audiomachine._


	50. Chapter 50

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Marianne Silver, goldenpuon, mythwriter, GhibliGirl91, Qweb, Jelsemium, Courtney, WantFanFics, Penny Tortoiseshell, gryffindorgal87, Beloved Daughter, Adamantium Rose, Katya Jade, Mystewitch, **__and __**Arrows the Wolf.**_

_Special thanks to __**Adamantium Rose**__, who caught some typos…_

_And now … drum roll … a chapter with a plot bunny that's been hopping around in my head since Chapter 7…_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 50

Smoke and sulfur stung Steve's eyes as he half crawled, half walked down the narrow pathway Washington had followed earlier to an unknown fate. Yasur grumbled like a dog protecting its bone, sparks stinging his face wherever there was bare flesh. He used his shield like an umbrella, shielding his head from the heat of the three erupting vents spewing lava into the air like a pot of spaghetti sauce forgotten on the stove too long to boil.

"Washington!" Steve shouted. "Hang on, buddy! I'm on my way to get you!"

It was impossible to tell whether the sound coming from beneath the overhang was Washington calling for help, or simply part of the general rumble of the volcano. There were three vents on the caldera floor, puffing smoke, pumice, and the occasional fountain of molten lava, as well as a newer crack that was too even to be natural. Some sort of lid? Steve suspended his sense of disbelief and focused what he'd come down here to do. Bring home the last man, whether dead or alive.

Another eruption shook the caldera, almost causing him to lose his footing and go tumbling into the nearest vent. He threw himself against the unstable ash, covering his face with the shield just in time to avoid a face full of lava. A football-sized glop of molten rock plopped onto his thigh and molded around it, neither liquid nor solid. Oh god! It burned! He screamed in pain as he used the shield like a spatula to scrape it off of his leg. Thank god for Tony Stark and his pansy joke of a uniform! The skin underneath was a bit cooked, but the magma hadn't burned all the way through the armor.

"Thank you, Tony Stark," Steve shouted to the sky. "I swear if I get myself out of this mess I'll cut you a little slack.

The blowhole died down, gearing up for another blast. Steve threw himself beneath the under hang Washington had disappeared into without looking, barely avoiding Yasur's next fiery breath as the god of fire made its displeasure known. He rolled and landed partway on his feet, nursing the burned leg beneath the armor.

And just barely missed being decapitated by a gigantic claw…

"Crap!" Steve shouted. Only years of experience in the Army dodging grenades and enemy mortar shells saved him from the shadow which clawed at him. He swung his shield at whatever grabbed at him and made contact, his shield making a dull 'thud' against the alien's exoskeleton. Dozens of smaller arms with tinier claws all grabbed at him simultaneously. Steve hit the creature again and again, dodging the armored claws, which for some reason his shield could only scratch, and the smaller ones, which were vulnerable if he cut them off close to the torso. He was so busy fighting that he couldn't even pause long enough to get a good look at it.

He tripped over something and fell backwards, smashing the back of his skull on pipes which gave a hollow ring. The alien snapped at him, both claws trying to get past his shield to get at his throat. Steve rolled and realized what he had tripped over. Washington. The Marine's chest rose and fell, but blood trickled out from the edge of one eye, visible even against his chocolate skin. The same wound Natasha had sported after the attack which had cost them the USS John F. Kennedy. Only this wound was a lot more messy. Because of the volcano? Or had Steve interrupted whatever it had been trying to do? One of the claws gripped the edge of his shield and tried to tear it out of his hand.

"Oh no you don't," Steve shouted, kicking the torso of what appeared to be a gigantic, seven-foot-tall bug. _Not _what he'd been expecting, but he had caught glimpses of whatever the hell he'd cut in half the night the aliens had stormed the Triskelion. A panther-like maw, two crab-like primary claws, and dozens of smaller ones. The thing Count Rugen had tried to warn him about. The alien had sets of eyes on every claw, peering at him from every direction.

It slammed his shield repeatedly against the wall, slamming _Steve _against the wall with it when he refused to let go.

"Can't … we … umpf … just … discuss … ouch … this?" Steve grunted out in pain between body slams.

The creature gave an ear-splitting shriek, appearing to be able to create sound on more than one frequency at the same time. Whatever sound it was making, Steve could feel the sound waves vibrate deep in his bones. The way a pipe organ resonated the big bass pipes during Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Steve twisted his shield just as the creature was cocking its claw to slam him against the enormous stainless steel pipes running alongside the wall of a concrete corridor and managed to yank it free, the claws unable to hold onto the slippery metal. A moan of pain came from Washington as the creature stepped on him in its zeal to get at _him._

"Washington," Steve shouted. "If you can hear me, you've got to get up!"

Dozens of smaller black claws grabbed at him, more agile than the brute force of the larger pair. Steve bobbed and dodged, thankful he'd spent the past six months sparring with the lightweight gang kids, whose youthful exuberance always gave him a run for his money. Big men punched. Little men ducked. It was a good thing Steve remembered how to duck like a little man and _avoid _getting hit by the bigger ones or he'd have been toast right about now.

Maybe it was time he bit the bullet and let Stark outfit him with one of those pulse reactor thingy's…?

A deeper rumble came from inside the tunnel, a howling noise like a jet engine warming up. _Away _from the direction Yasur volcano was erupting just a few feet through the blast door he'd rolled through. The pipes which lined the wall, and there were dozens of them, began to make a noise like the hull of a submarine when it was making a deep dive. Pressure. The machinery began to hum.

The alien screeched and hit at him one last time, then turned and ran down the corridor. Outside the blast door, Yasur shot up a fresh round of magma. Steve threw his body over Washington's, covering both of their faces with his shield. The magma hit Washington's leg where he hadn't been able to cover it. Washington screamed as the molten rock began to burn through his fatigues. His eyes shot open.

"Corporal Washington!" Steve shouted. "Can you walk?"

Washington shrieked and tried to scurry back from him, his eyes wild.

"It's okay, Marine," Steve said, recalling Marines hated to be called 'soldier.' "I'm here to get you out of here. We don't leave our men behind."

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what w-w-was that thing?" Washington stuttered, holding his eye.

"Shape shifter," Steve said. "I've encountered one before. It's a good thing I got here when I did or who knows what it would have done to you?"

He _knew _what it would have done to him. Whatever thing it had done to bend Natasha and the other Melanesian islanders to its will. Only … Natasha had been in a coma for a month, while the Vanuatian and other Melanesian Island nation residents who'd disappeared then come back a bit 'off' had all similarly vanished for around a month and then come back. Washington appeared to be fully cognizant of his surroundings. Steve just hoped he wasn't dealing with another shape shifter.

The roaring from down the tunnel, _away _from Yasur, grew louder. Heat blasting at him from inside the tunnels made the volcano seem cool by comparison. The pipes which ran down both sides of the walls hummed louder, metal screaming in protest as too much pressure was pumped through the pipes. They began to glow red hot.

"I can walk, Sir," Washington said, his brown eyes round with terror. "If you help me."

Steve grabbed his arm and heaved him up, the big Marine heavy even for _him _to carry. Although Doctor Erskine's machine had made him far stronger than an average man, he _was _still just a man. He could run faster, endure longer, and lift more, but that didn't make him a titan like Thor.

"You've got to carry more of your own weight, Marine," Steve ordered. "Or I'm not going to be able to carry you out of here. You don't want me to drop you down into that volcano, do you?"

"No, Sir," Washington said.

Washington was shaky, but if Steve acted like a crutch and kept him against the wall, he could aim him that way if he fell. Steve put his shield between them and the volcano, acutely aware that Washington's fatigues gave him little protection against the molten lava. Flames shot out of the tunnel they had been in only moments before, the volcano beneath them making a kind of sucking noise as whatever the pipes were pumping out of it had just run out.

A fresh earthquake hit the caldera, causing the flat place where they'd been standing only moments before to fall away. Pipes gleamed in the sunlight, no longer hidden. One of them burst. Smoke … no .. steam came pouring out of pipes designed to go around the caldera and gather heat from the volcano below.

"Let's get out of here, Sir," Washington said, trying his best to stand.

The big Marine was shaky, but adrenaline and a will to live made him keep moving one foot in front of the other, slowly climbing out of the caldera as it puffed clouds of pumice and smoke at them. The thing stank like rotten eggs, but at the moment, it only shot sparks at them. They crested the rim and looked down to see Vasquez and Garcia there, two pairs of hands waiting to grab them.

"Commander Rogers," Vasquez shouted above the rumble of the volcano. "We don't leave our men behind, Sir."

"You were ordered to return to Base," Steve said, the tone of his voice conveying how very happy he was that they _hadn't _returned to base.

"We had a bit of radio trouble, Sir," Garcia said with a grin. "The last thing we heard Base say was that _you _were supposed to get the hell out of here. Didn't hear any order telling _us _to go."

The other Marines took turns helping Washington down towards the jeep, even the old Vanuatian man lending a shoulder to lean on. They jammed Washington into the back of the jeep like a sack of potatoes.

The ground shuddered beneath their feet. Off to their right, enormous cracks began to appear on the larger ash cone, Mount Tukosmera.

"Get the hell out of here!" Steve ordered. "For real this time."

"Do as I say and not as I do," Sgt. Grady said with a grin. "Huh?"

"Damn right," Steve said. "That's why we're called _super _heroes. We're expendable."

Rocks crumbled off of Mount Tukosmera. Yasur's larger companion. A volcano which had reportedly been extinct since the Pleistocene era. The mountain split in half and began to fall apart, as though it were a clam shell opening

"What the fuck?" Garcia shouted. "I thought that damned volcano was extinct?"

"Obviously not," Sgt. Grady said.

"Go!" Steve shouted.

It was not the rumble of a second volcano erupting that stopped them in their tracks, but a whistle like a thousand jet engines saying hello to a few dozen rocket ships. The 'mountain' began to heave upwards towards the sky.

"Oh … shit …" Vasquez choked out.

Steve stared in horror as black volcanic sand and pumice fell away from the monstrous ship which heaved itself out of its hiding place and launched itself into the air.

"Base, Base," Sgt. Grady shouted into his radio. "It's one of those goddamned leviathans … coming straight at you."

"That don't look right," Garcia said.

Washington collapsed into the back of the jeep. Seeing as he'd nearly had his brains sucked out of his head, nobody was going to hold it against him.

"That's no leviathan," Steve said, noting the _lack _of an undulating pattern on the ship. He recalled the ship Tony Stark had described he had seen when he'd carried the nuclear weapon through the dimensional portal opened up by Loki and lobbed it at the mother ship. There had been a second one on Earth all along?

"Base, this is Eagle One," Steve called. "You need to put a call in to the President. We've got a mother ship on this planet. Repeat. We have a mother ship on this planet. And it's headed straight at you."

"Lock and load!" Sgt. Grady shouted from his side. "Shoulder mounted RPG's. Now!"

M-17's swung into position as two Marines whose name Steve couldn't remember grabbed RPG's out of the back of the jeep and aimed them so nobody would get blasted out the back when the miniature missiles took off.

"Fire at will!" Sgt. Grady shouted.

Steve pulled out his sidearm, a Chitauri-enhanced 'ray gun' he called it. It was Stark Industries pulse reactor pistol, part Chitauri energy weapon. The Marines did the same, their pulse-reactor enhanced M-17's making the distance needed to hit the side of the enemy ship, but they were so puny in comparison to the mountain-sized mother ship that they did no significant damage.

"Look at the size of that thing," Washington said, his hand over one eye. He aimed his M-17 at the ship and fired with the other hand.

"See … I tell you," Pisiv, the old man said. "Not John Frum who come to village, lure son. That false god."

"Glad to see you're still with us, Marine," Steve shouted at Washington, his aim off, but determined to fire at the mother ship which was so big it ignored them like fleas. Steve took aim and fired off a few more shots himself. From this elevation, they could see all the way to the ocean. The USS America sat like shark chum in Sulfur Bay. Bait. The thing the mother ship was headed straight for.

"Base, you've got trouble coming your way," Steve shouted into the microphone.

"I think it would be more fair to say _it _has trouble coming _its _way, Cap," a familiar voice came over the radio.

"Fury," Steve called. "Where the heck have you been?"

The mother ship banked and flew slightly further north. A moment later, it corrected its direction again. It was no longer headed for Sulfur Bay, but the ocean just north of it.

"They're running away!" Garcia cheered.

"Keep shooting," Steve said. He hit the broadcast button on his radio. "Anyone on the ground or air … this is Eagle One. If you've got anything to hit that thing with, hit it. I repeat. Throw everything you've got at it. We might not be able to bring it down, but we can damage it."

"Eagle One, this is Base," the Marines commander called from the USS America. "We've got a little help coming from our friends."

One … no … three … dots rose above the ocean at the next island on the Vanuatian chain, Aniwa, little more than an archipelago a few miles away from Tanna. The mother ship was ignoring the USS America and headed straight for that island. It must have spotted the …

"It's the USS Gerald Ford!" Steve shouted, finally recognizing the ship. "And two … others?"

On either side of the Gerald Ford flew two smaller carriers, one a Chinese light carrier retrofitted with helicarrier drives, the other some strange looking ship unlike anything he had ever seen before but obviously terrestrial in origin. By the sickle and hammer painted on the side, it must be Russian. The two smaller ships broke off and circled to either side, leaving the Gerald Ford to play chicken with the Chitauri mother ship.

"Avengers, Avengers, this is S.H.I.E.L.D.," Nick Fury shouted. "You are to harry that ship like a wolf pack. I repeat. You are to harry that ship like a wolf pack. We just got confirmation from Stark Industries that there _is _something to Commander Roger's theory about the aliens not being able to process two conflicting threats at the same time. I want every man on that island, I don't care if you just throw sticks at them, to distract them."

Dozens of fighter jets lifted off from the ocean-bound USS America as well as the three ships that were airborne. The mother ship did the same thing, releasing dozens of Chitauri gliders. Moments later, attack helicopters took off, some of the ones coming off the Russian ships types he'd never seen before. The boom of something going supersonic caught his attention from the rear. He glanced up just in time to see Iron Man and Thor go flying towards the rear of the mother ship in perfect formation like a pair of fighter jets.

Small weapons fire and RPG's erupted from several positions just east of them. Ground units. Platoons of Marines who'd dug in and were shooting at the enormous ship and the Chitauri gliders erupting from it from wherever they patrolled. The damage they could inflict on the bigger ship was minimal, but they could provide ground cover for the fighter jets against the gliders. Even a great beast could be brought down if you pricked it with a needle enough times.

"The mother ship is out of range, Sir," Sgt. Grady said. "Request permission to move closer to the action?"

A disturbance at the edge of the ash field caught his attention. A momentary glimpse of a big green head and arm rose above a tree top, then disappear under again as the Hulk grabbed a glider out of the air and smashed it, then continued bounding after the enemy. On his radio, Steve could hear Nick Fury barking orders at the combined fleet, coordinating regular military assets with Avengers and SHIELD to take the mother ship down.

"Get your ass up here, Commander Rogers," Nick Fury shouted over the radio, whooping like he'd just won the lottery. "Damn, Cap! Who'd have thought a 67-year-old treasure map would yield gold!"

Pulse-reactor enhanced cannons fired off the Gerald Ford and blasted at the mother ship, the two smaller heli-vessels firing off somewhat similar weapons. It appeared the alien threat had inspired the three normally hostile superpowers to quit bickering and share technology to address the bigger threat of world domination. Smoke streamed out of the mother ship wherever the cannons made impact, wounding the great ship which had crossed galaxies.

Steve grinned. Vindicated. At last. He turned to the Recon Force squadron leader, Sgt. Grady.

"Go get 'em, Marines!" Steve hooted at Sgt. Grady. "I've got to get myself airborne so I can help them out."

Fighter jets swarmed the island and Sulfur Bay like black flies in the spring. Out in the ocean, the USS Gerald Ford pounded the mother ship with everything it had. It wasn't just Earth-based technology they were using this time, but the Chitauri's own weapons against them. And _this _time, the Gerald Ford had been retrofitted with Stark Industries Jericho missiles. Hundreds of them split apart and landed all over the Chitauri mother ship, wreaking damage that, while not carrying the massive destruction of a nuclear device, came damned close. The technology Tony Stark had said he'd never allow to be used for military applications ever again. It appeared the alien invasion over New York had given him a change of heart.

"Whoo!" the Marines shouted, punching their fists into the air in a sign of victory as they piled back into the jeep.

The Marines tore out of there like bats out of hell, headed straight for the disappearing mother ship. Even the old guy, Pisiv, grabbing a lowly pistol and aiming regular bullets at the tail of the ship. Steve jogged towards his Harrier jet and leaped up onto the wing to climb into the cockpit. One of the bad things about instituting a shutdown to land was it took a good fifteen minutes to get the engines powered up to take off again. He had been expecting a threat from the ground, not the air. The engines hummed and then whined as jet engines began to warm, the whistle of the afterburners turning into a dull roar. He glanced out to see a modified Chitauri glider coast in for a landing. One of theirs.

"Natasha?" Steve asked. He couldn't hear anything above the engines.

Natasha stepped off the glider and gestured for him to get out. Boy … she looked pissed. But she wasn't armed … and last he'd heard she was still in charge. There was a whole lot of things going on here he didn't understand. Steve climbed out, not trustful, but not sure how to react. It appeared Fury had compartmentalized everyone so that a mole in one unit had no idea what a separate unit was up to. He slid off the wing, watchful and wary. At this point, he didn't know _who _was compromised.

"Do you have any idea what you've just done?" Natasha pointed towards the mother ship, which was getting the crap kicked out of it by the wolf-pack of three that had snuck up on the island while the Marines had been playing bait, keeping the aliens too occupied watching the mock D-Day invasion they had unrolled right in their back yard when the _real _threat was creeping up on them under cover of the smaller islands.

"I don't understand," Steve said. "What's your problem?"

"My problem, man out of time," Natasha hissed, "is that you have no idea what you just called down upon this planet. I've been setting up this game for more than three hundred years, , and now you've gone and ruined it."

As she spoke, her voice took on the low undertone he had noticed that day in the Triskelion when she'd confronted the blonde-haired, dark-skinned shape shifter that had assumed the shape of one of the Vanuatian Melanesian Islanders. The one who had appeared to be dressing her down for something before she had ordered him to kill it. Natasha's voice became deeper, no longer feminine. It seemed … familiar.

"I don't know who you're working for," Steve said, slipping his shield off his back. "But Earth will never bow down to any master."

"No," Natasha hissed. "It's gone way past that. You don't know what you've just unleashed. All I ever wanted was to rule this world. To shape it and make it part of the larger empire. So long as I kept control, the Other didn't care enough to be bothered by you. But your actions with Loki have angered them, man out of time. Now the Other is just going to destroy you."

Natasha swung at him. Her lightning fast reflexes were similar to Natasha, but the strength which was behind it was far greater than a normal humans. Even an infinity-serum enhanced on. It felt as though he were fighting … himself. Steve got knocked backwards into the sand.

"What are you?" Steve asked.

"You've met me before, man out of time," Natasha said. "In one of my other forms. _This _time, I'm going to take care of you so you can't screw up any more of my plans."

"Not likely," Steve said. He waited until she swung at him again, a move nearly identical to one of Natasha's, but now that he understood it wasn't _her_, he could detect the footprint of a much heavier creature. He waited until her leg extended to its full length, the position of _least _stored energy, and slammed down the edge of his shield to sever it.

Natasha screeched, an inhuman, blood curdling sound as the shield hit bone. She punched at him, but her hands were no longer just hands, but had begun to shift form into something else. Tentacles. She knocked him back, the hands reshaping themselves into claws, as she reached for his throat. He hit her again, but the claws solidified enough to be impenetrable even to virbanium.

"I've had enough of you, man out of time," Natasha said. "You're not in charge of this world. I am. And this time, I'm not going to let you get in my way."

Steve stared into cold blue eyes and remembered where he had seen such eyes before. Where he had heard that voice before. Where he had heard somebody say 'you're not in charge of this world' before.

"Herr Kleiser," Steve gasped.

"You remember me," Natasha aka Herr Kleiser laughed. "And now you're going to serve me as one of my puppets."

"I'd rather be dead," Steve hissed. He punched her in the belly and immediately spun around to land a tornado kick in her chest. Natasha stepped to one side and landed a back scorpion kick to his abdomen, then did a move he'd never seen her do before, grabbing at his throat with a claw-like hand. He gurgled in agony as Natasha lifted him off the ground by his throat, his neck pinched between her vice-like claws, the rest of her still human. He had no choice but to grab at and hold the claw which gripped him like a vice, trying to prevent her from snapping his neck. One of the smaller claws rose level with his head. A narrow tentacle shot out, aiming straight for his eye.

"You have something I need, man out of time," Natasha said, pulling his face inches from hers. "Killing you would deprive me of your usefulness. But don't worry. I'll have you behaving in no time."

The tentacle shot straight into the edge of his eye. Steve screamed. Fire shot into his brain as the tentacle burrowed deep into his skull. His kicks were fruitless against the creature, which held him away from its body so he couldn't land a kick. He swung his shield up from below, into the _underside _of the joint of the claw. A vulnerable spot. Natasha shrieked and dropped him before she could finish whatever she was doing, the tentacle yanking out of his brain. His shield remained stuck halfway into the elbow joint of the claw, no longer at his hands. He grabbed his damaged eye, unable to see as he fought the urge to vomit. Or pass out.

"Then again," Natasha shrieked, kicking at him while he was down. "You're too damned much trouble."

She picked him up as though he were a rag doll. Dozens of smaller tentacles clawed into his face and chest as a large claw gripped his midsection and began to crush it. Steve screamed as he felt her claw pierce his armor right into his belly, tearing through the skin into his entrails. The world grew dark and far away, the sound of his own heartbeat beating in his ears as coldness sank into him, just as it had when the ice had taken him all those years ago.

Bernice…

Pain caused a weird euphoria as his body recognized not even _he_ could survive a wound such as this…

He closed his eyes.

Bernice…

He pictured her in his mind, an angel come down from heaven to grace his wedding bed. The touch of her flesh against his, teaching him what it meant to be loved. Black hair sweeping across her ivory, swanlike neck. One soft breast peeking out from beneath the covers. His wife. It was an image he would carry with him across time. The one thing not even Time itself could steal from him.

The claws tearing at his entrails paused.

"What are you doing here?" Natasha asked.

Steve forced his eyes to focus. Clint. Landing a glider. The archer stared down the shaft of an arrow that was aimed straight for Steve, a grenade-tipped arrowhead screwed onto the front of it. Clint drew back his bow and aimed straight for Steve's heart. Natasha's claw-like hands had disappeared the moment she had let go of him. She stepped back, giving Clint a clear shot.

"Kill him," Natasha said.

Gasping for breath, each jerk of his diaphragm shot pain into his punctured intestines as he lay upon the ground, watching the battle which went on in the panorama of the ocean his birds-eye perch afforded. It felt as though he were no longer in his body. He saw the Chitauri mother ship take a direct hit from the USS Gerald Ford. Smoke poured out of its propulsion system as the two smaller ships harried it like wolves nipping at its heels. All around it, hundreds of attack helicopters and fighter jets fired upon it with everything they had, the sky turned fiery red from the setting sun. The mother ship keeled and tilted down into the ocean in slow motion.

Victory. At least his death would not be in vain.

"I love you," Clint whispered to Natasha. "I will always love you."

Clint let fly the arrow.

_Bernice…_

Steve shut his eyes, thankful that at least his death would be quick.

X

_Note: Don't forget to drop your comments in the box below…_

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_Image/info - volcanic geothermal stuff, UA version of Chitauri, Mt. Yasur exploding, alien ships, and Hawkeye._

_Soundtrack for Chapter 50: Two Steps From Hell - Black Blade_

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	51. Chapter 51

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Jelsemium, Adamantium Rose, LEPrecon, pizzagirl, RipplesOfAqua, goldenpuon, Beloved Daughter, Qweb, Katya Jade, Arrows the Wolf, Penny Tortoiseshell, Mystewitch, gryffindorgal87, Courtney, **__and __**La Bella Figura.**_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 51

"I can't tell you how pleased Mr. Stark was to receive this information." The cheerful twinkle in Dr. Nyi's eyes matched the reflection of the fluorescent lights off his cue ball of a bald head. "Even as we speak, word is being spread to all units of the military how to distract the enemy so our soldiers have a better chance of winning."

It always struck Bernice how much Doctor Nyi looked like a broody hen, clucking at one engineer, pecking at another, to get the very best out of them. The next door neighbor had a small flock when she was a kid, six pretty little golden Austrolops, a gentle, good-natured bird, and a single golden rooster. It had been a weird backyard hobby for the suburbs of New Jersey, but the kids in the neighborhood used to sneak through the fence and feed them. Right now, Doctor Nyi reminded her of a proud hen who'd just laid a big, fat egg.

"It was Bernice's idea," Huojin said.

"Yeah … Bernice made us do it!" Ralph said.

"Brain fart!" The rest of the engineers shouted in unison. There was lots of high fives and sticking of hands under armpits to make farting noises, behavior more befitting nine-year-old boys than the largely middle-aged group of highly-educated engineers.

Bernice blushed.

"I was just at the right place at the right time," Bernice said. "It was something Steeee…. um … uh … it was something a friend of mine said that got me thinking."

"You mean it was something that hot boyfriend of yours said that we all know you're not supposed to talk about," Ralph whispered.

"I said honky tonk…."

"Badonkadonk."

Several of the engineers pantomimed Steve's stiff performance on the dance floor while another pretended to be Bernice swooning after a dance. Bernice's cheeks turned hot pink. She _still _hadn't told anyone...

"It was all Ralph and Huojin," Bernice said, trying not to stutter. "I just noticed a pattern, that's all. They're the ones who backed it up with data."

"Well I'm sure Mr. Stark will thank us _all_ once he gets back," Doctor Nyi said. "Each and every one of you. By the bags under everyone's eyes, I can tell you have all gotten about much sleep as _I _have the last twenty-four hours. Ralph and Huojin … even less. Are those the same clothes you had on yesterday, guys?"

"Friday." Bernice pretended to sniff her armpits and wrinkled up her nose. "They've been here since Friday. And those are _definitely _the same clothes."

"Hey … we took showers!" Huojin protested. "That's why Mr. Stark built shower and rest facilities into every lab."

"Yeah," Ralph said. "The Iron Man isn't the _only _wirehead to pull an all-nighter when he's on the trail of a technological breakthrough."

The engineers slapped each other on the back. Bernice did her best to fade into the nearest wall, her white lab coat conveniently blending into the plain white paint.

"Back to work, everyone!" Doctor Nyi said. "Staff meeting is over. You have your goals for the day. Bernice … S.H.I.E.L.D. has released some footage taken from inside the Triskelion during the last attack. They want those sharp eyes of yours taking a second look. See if you can pick out anything they might have missed."

"On it," Bernice said. The engineers poured out of the conference room, everybody in good spirits after their morning briefing to face the day. Although it wasn't quite Orville and Wilber Wright taking their first flight, it gave Bernice an idea of how other great minds might have felt after flying, splitting the atom, or discovering the cure for infection. Every person in the lab today felt a buzz of elation.

It quickly died as she queued up the videos, typing in her encrypted top-secret password to gain access. She began viewing SHIELD agents acting strangely, wincing as they cold-bloodedly murdered their fellow agents. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could see the delay Steve had spoken of, the way the agents pursued a task with single-minded efficiency, their reaction times far faster than those of an ordinary human. And yet the simplest danger, such as Clint sneaking up on a group of compromised agents and knocking them unconscious, went unnoticed.

Her cell phone buzzed on her desk. She grabbed it, hoping it was a call. A text message. Probably Jacquie, wanting to meet for lunch and iron out their differences, or that was what the _last _text message she'd gotten from Jacquie had asked. She was surprised to see the text had come from Steve.

_Almost done here. No aliens. Be home tomorrow night? Get together with your family and give you that big white wedding you deserve. Miss you! Love … Steve._

She kissed the phone and typed in her reply, hoping he could figure out how to locate the message amongst the spam. She had hacked into his Twitter account, deleting most subscriptions so her emails had a chance of being read. He was now pruned down to National Weather Service updates and the latest baseball statistics from the Dodgers, who had been the Brooklyn Dodgers back in 1945, but were now based out of Los Angeles. She made a mental note to scrounge up the video footage from the 1955 World Series. Back when Steve had attended games in New York, the team had been a lost cause.

She settled back into her task, searching for oddities in behavior, things that might have clued SHIELD earlier that agents were compromised. She came across footage of Steve limping into the Avengers locker room, sporting the wounds he had showed up at her apartment with, and pull on his armor. That was that _other_ Steve in the video. The one searching Melanesia right now for hostile aliens. The one she didn't want to think about. Thank god they'd come up empty handed and would soon be home!

She watched footage of the attractive red-headed woman she'd met at Miss Pott's birthday party with the icy stare. Agent Romanov entered the room and began arguing with a blonde-haired black man. She turned to speak to Steve, who had just come in the door. She threw his shield towards him and erupted into action, kicking the blonde-haired man. Bernice winced as the man threw Steve against the wall. The cameras went dead.

More than anything in the world she knew that incident haunted Steve. So she watched it again…

And again…

And again…

And again…

Searching for some clue the blonde-haired man was something other than just a man until he'd exhibited inhuman strength. Nothing. No delay. No impaired reaction time. Nothing at all.

She froze the video, watching it frame-by-frame, searching for some sign of the man turning into the thing Steve swore he'd seen it turn into after he had cut it in half. Nothing. Not a single clue the man was one of the Chitauri drones. In the background, the grey-skinned alien Steve called Count Rugen cower in the background, obviously afraid despite its size. Not a thing. Not in the video. Not in the…

Wait a minute…

She turned up the volume in the frame just before Steve walked into the room. Listening not for what Natasha said, but the way the other man's facial features reacted to a low-pitched sound she had assumed was _him _speaking. Steve had told Mr. Stark had hacked into the computer overseeing who got access to Count Rugen's cell so it couldn't be opened. With one alien in a sound-proof chamber, then who was the second alien talking to the black man?

She froze the frame, enlarging it to get a good look at Agent Romanov. What was it Steve loved most about her? Her neck. Agent Romanov had such an attractive, slender neck. But not in _this _picture. If there was one thing Bernice understood about the human form, it was that deep vocal chords were accompanied by an enlarged Adam's apple_, _which was only prominent in men. Her transgender friend in art school had always lamented her inability to get rid of her Adam's apple. Bernice flipped back a few frames and watched Agent Romanov's throat. No Adam's apple … and then all of a sudden her throat thickened and there _was _an Adam's apple just as the second group of low-pitched sound waves filled the room. Just seconds before Steve walked in.

"She's a shape shifter," Bernice whispered in horror. That was no mole. That was _one _of them.

"Doctor Nyi!" Bernice shouted. "Doctor Nyi!" She jumped up and ran out of her cubicle, right into Pepper Potts.

"Bernice."

"She's a shape shifter," Bernice panted. "Miss Potts. You have to warn them. She's not just a potential mole. She's _one _of them!"

Miss Potts was pale beneath her freckles, as though she had eaten something which had disagreed with her. Doctor Nyi was wringing his hands.

"Bernice," Miss Potts swallowed. "I've got some bad news."

The other engineers in the laboratory popped their heads over the tops of their cubicles like prairie dogs, listening intently to the drama involving the CEO of their company unfolding in their lab.

"She's a shape shifter!" Bernice grabbed Miss Potts by the hand. "You've got to warn Steve! Agent Romanov is a shape shifter!"

Pepper herded her back towards her cubicle, her two security guards flanking her on either side. Doctor Nyi took Bernice by the arm. His hands trembled where they touched her shirt sleeve.

"Bernice," Miss Potts said, her eyes filled with sorrow. "It's Steve."

Bernice stood, unable to move, as her ears heard the words but her brain refused to listen.

"There was a battle," Miss Potts said. "He was on the volcano when it erupted. He's missing in action."

"No!" Bernice said, refusing to believe it. "I got a text message from him a little while ago. He said they were all done and coming home."

"Bernice," Miss Potts took Bernice's hand. "Please. We've got to go. Tony's been hurt. I want you to come with me. Maybe … maybe they'll find him alive."

"No…" Bernice whispered. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, Steve's text message still on the screen. "He said he was coming home."

"I think it's about the mystery man we're not supposed to talk about," Ralph whispered to the others. "Bernice's boyfriend. He's been shot down."

Pepper looked at all the heads of her employees peeking above their cubicles, stretching through the entire cavernous laboratory. Dozens of them. Her eyes were filled with sadness.

"Steve Rogers isn't Bernice's boyfriend," Miss Potts said, her voice warbling with emotion. "He's her husband. Bernice just lost her husband."

The engineers looked at each other in shocked silence. As the body guards herded her towards the door, each and every engineer reached out to touch her and give her their reassurances. The room was a blur. Doctor Nyi grabbed her purse for her and led her through the security checks, into the elevator and up a hundred stories to the helipad located on the penthouse of Stark Industries. The security guards guided her into the waiting chopper. Bernice's mind refused to process where her body was going as she was led into her seat and somebody else buckled her in as though she were a helpless child.

"I'm so sorry." Miss Potts eyes were filled with her own private fears. "We'll get to them. We'll get to them as fast as we can."

Her mind refused to believe what she'd just been told. Bernice squeezed shut her eyes and replayed, over and over again in her mind, the last words Steve had said to her before he'd walked out the door of their new apartment.

_I won't let Time take you from me…_

It wasn't until the Stark Industries private jet took off, the pressure causing her ears to pop as she stared at the seat facing her at Miss Pott's worried eyes, that it began to finally become _real _enough for her to begin to ask questions.

"Missing?"

"I'm sorry," Miss Potts said, her hands playing nervously with her pencil skirt. "That's all I know."

"Mr. Stark?" Bernice asked.

"He got hurt," Pepper said, chewing on her lower lip. "Thor saved him."

It was a silent thirteen hour flight, their hands clasped in fellowship as the Cessna Citation X-10 sped at just below Mach speed to rendezvous with the helicarrier in the Melanesian islands. Bernice prayed, as she was certain Miss Potts prayed, for the safety of the men they loved. She stared out the window, her heart as empty as the featureless blue sea they flew over.

The Cessna circled the enormous flying runway as the helicarrier hovered above a fiery sea, the ocean filled with every manner of seagoing vessel combing the water for wreckage. The alien mother ship still burned. This was the world her grandmother had tried to shield her from. A dangerous world where titans clashed and nations hung in the balance every single day. The magnitude of what she'd gotten herself into crushed down upon her as the plane made its final approach.

Just outside the window, hellfire rained down on the island as the volcano Steve had text messaged her from only fifteen hours ago spewed the contents of the Earth into the sky, no longer a 'tame' volcano. There? He had been there? How could _anyone _survive there? Even the military had pulled back a safe distance, moving upwind so volcanic ash wouldn't clog their engines.

The plane touched down upon a runway far shorter than it had been designed to land upon, jerking her forward as the landing hook caught the Cessna inches before if fell off the opposite end of the runway. No sooner had her head slammed back into the seat behind her than the plane was being dragged off the flight path by a ground operations vehicle and a fighter jet landed right behind them. All manner of fighter planes buzzed around them like angry bees. Men in battle fatigues herded them into the command turret of the helicarrier, an enormous room with a panoramic view of the flight deck and the ocean below.

Nick Fury stepped forward, his expression filled with sadness. He pointed Miss Potts to a guard assigned to guide her to the medical bay where Mr. Stark was receiving treatment, leaving Bernice alone on the bridge. This was that _other _Steve's world. A world that was totally alien to her.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Fury said. His face had that look somebody had whenever they were about to give you bad news. "We sent a search plane in as close as we dared. We could find no sign of Steve. Or his Harrier jet. That area has been completely destroyed."

"Natasha is a shape shifter," Bernice whispered, giving him the information which was now too late. "I saw her throat shift into a man's Adam's apple on the video."

Nick Fury looked away, pausing to swallow. She could swear the fierce S.H.I.E.L.D. director fought back tears.

"I wish we had shown you that video earlier," Fury said. "We didn't know _who _to believe. Somebody at the Pentagon was feeding us false intelligence. Claiming Steve had been working undercover for Red Skull during the war. Their evidence was pretty compelling. If I hadn't … if I hadn't gotten to know Gabriel Jones during Vietnam and listened to his concerns about the Pentagon covering up Steve's discovery of the suspicious activity during the second world war, I might have believed her. I just wish I'd taken action sooner."

"Is he…?"

"We're still looking," Nick Fury said. "A lot of lives were saved today because of your sharp eyes. If it wasn't for you, what you were able to quantify about the alien weakness, the battle very well might have gone the other way. These men … are in your debt."

Bernice nodded, but it was a hollow victory. The only reason she had _looked _was because she wanted to keep the man she loved alive.

"Corporal Ivanko will take you down to a briefing room where you can wait," Nick said. "There's really nothing you can do here. It's just … if we _do _find him … either way … I know he wouldn't want us to leave you just sitting at home."

Her mind was numb as she followed the Marine down into the belly of the ship. As soon as the door closed to give her some privacy, she curled up in the corner and began to cry, her cell phone plastered to her ear as she listened to Steve's voicemail tell her that he loved her over and over again.

X

_Note: Poor Bernice … I misplaced my kid at Walmart once and was frantic. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be told your spouse is missing in action._

_Don't forget I've got extra notes, images, and video clips dug up while researching this chapter at my special facebook page. Hop on over for a peek and, if you want to get tidbits hours before I post the next chapter to see what I'm mulling over, click 'like' on the page. I promise … no dancing kittens or spam!_

_Images posted: Bernice, Pepper Potts, Marvel 'Fallen Son,' Cessna Citation X-10 performance video clip, helicarrier taking off._

_Soundtrack: Macrimmon's Lament - Sheila Chandra_

_Link (close up spaces):_

_w w w . facebook pages / Anna-Erishkigal / 203837383044945?ref=hl_


	52. Chapter 52

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Adamantium Rose, Kelly Jo, lazarus73, Jelsemium, Qweb, Tsuki no Yasha, gryffindorgal87, Courtney, LEPrecon, Mystewitch, mythwriter, Phoenixstar7, WantFanFics, La Bella Figura, Prospero Hibiki, Arrows the Wolf, RipplesOfAqua, Penny Tortoiseshell, **__and__** pizzagirl.**_

_Thanks to __**Adamantium Rose**__ who pointed out Cessna's don't come with tail hooks._

_Dodgers … from Brooklyn … all fixed now!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 52

The explosion came as expected, but for some reason, his ears were still attached enough to his head to hear a horrific shriek.

"Why?"

"The woman I loved died the day you bored a hole into her skull."

A second explosion.

A third.

Then there was no sound at all. Nothing except for the rumble of the volcano. Arms grabbed him, pulling his head up from the sand. Pain tore his belly. Steve screamed as movement caused his scrambled innards to threaten to tumble outwards.

"I'm sorry!" The tears were audible in Clint's voice as the archer openly wept. "I'm so sorry. If I'd known … she … I knew something was wrong with her! I just … I couldn't believe it."

Steve gasped, his pain matching Clint's emotional agony at having just killed the woman he loved. He tried to form words and could think of none, each labored breath causing his scrambled internal organs to grind together. It felt as though something still clawed at him. As though even in death, Natasha still wished to tear him apart. Something hit him in the head. Larger rocks began to fall all around them.

"Steve, you've got to get up!" Clint tugged at him, ignoring Steve's whimpers of pain. "We got to get out of here! This entire place is about to blow!"

Steve knew he should order Clint to leave him behind and save himself. That's what the _old _Captain America would have done. But he wanted to live. He one last chance to feel Bernice in his arms.

"I … can't … move," Steve choked out as Clint got him sitting upright. "Help … me?"

"I can't move two of us on the glider," Clint said. "It's a one-man model. We're going to have to get you into your Harrier jet."

"Can't … fly."

"We'll sort that out later," Clint said.

Yasur regurgitated pumice the size of Cadillacs into the air. Magma shot above the level of the caldera, angry red streaks of fire against the black cone and even blacker sky as magma began to overflow the giant which had been too long asleep, it's excess energies siphoned off to power the alien mother ship.

"Up we go," Clint said. He yanked Steve to his feet and wedged his shoulder under his armpit.

Steve shrieked in agony. It felt as though there were a knife twisting in his gut. The sound of the volcano grew faint and far away. All of a sudden he was laying on the wing of his plane with no memory of how he had gotten this far. Had Clint carried him? Or dragged him?

"I've never flown a jump jet before," Clint said. "Once we get it airborne, I know what to do. But you're going to have to help me get it up and down. Do you think you can do that?"

"I'll … try."

Clint heaved him upright to stand on the wing. Oh god! It hurt! Dying had been a lot easier when it had been ice which had taken him. Perhaps he really _had _died this time and this was hell? Lord only knew it was fiery enough here, complete with hellfire and magma. The volcano spewed yellowish black smoke thick with sulfur as chunks of pumice hit the jet. It was a good thing he'd left the engine running. If they didn't get it out of here quick, they were toast. Sparks burned his cheek.

Clint shoved him into the seat and buckled the harness. Steve nearly blacked out. He realized Clint had been talking to him the entire time. How long had he drifted? This was more talking than he'd heard Clint do the entire time he'd known him. Trying to anchor him here. Give him something to focus on besides the pain. Clint shoved gauze from the medic supply bag he kept in the rear seat of the jet into the rips in his gut.

"How … bad?"

"I'm not going to lie to you, Steve," Clint said. "This looks really bad. But they can fix it. There ain't nothing the docs can't fix if you just hang on. You help me get this thing airborne, and I'll get you to help. I swear."

The volcano belched as though it were an overweight man suffering from indigestion. Molten red lava spewed over the top and headed down the cone at them. It was now … or never.

"Let's do this," Clint said.

Clint yanked down the hatch and throttled the engine. The jet whined, its engines complaining about the volcanic ash getting sucked into the intake valves as it melted into sticky obsidian glass. All S.H.I.E.L.D. agents received at least _some _training in flying. Higher level agents such as himself and Clint were trained to fly fighter jets. But the Harrier was a unique animal, one of the few jets capable of taking off and landing vertically instead of horizontally. It was darned handy for the kinds of missions the Avengers got sent on, but it was also one of the most dangerous. The tiltable V/STOL which directed the jet engines downwards instead of horizontally was a wild ride to control mid-air. Only the most experienced pilots ever got to train in a Harrier or its newer progeny, the F-35B. Steve had mastered it because the P-51 Mustang he had flown back in World War II had been unstable. Compared to that, the Harrier was a cinch. But for someone like Clint who'd cut his teeth on modern aviation, the jet was a nightmare to fly.

"What do I do, Steve?" Clint shouted. "You've got your own controls back there. You just get us up off the ground. I'll do the rest." The two-seat version of the Harrier was a trainer jet. Either pilot could take control in an emergency.

Steve panted to get enough oxygen to clear his mind without expanding his lungs enough to push down on the intestines Natasha had tried to rip out of his body. He'd heard of such punishments in medieval kingdoms … of drawing and quartering prisoners before killing them to set an example … but this was the first time such a punishment had ever seemed _real._

"Mayday, mayday," Clint shouted into the radio. "Base … this is Hawkeye. We got a man down! Mayday. Mayday. Can anybody read me?"

Nothing but static. Clint shouted expletives at the radio, which had been knocked out by a dog-sized chunk of volcanic pumice.

"Damn!"

Pain. So much pain. All he had to do was endure the pain and Clint would get him back to Bernice. He focused on her now. Bernice. An angel, fallen from heaven to grace his wedding bed. One soft breast peeking from beneath the covers as her lips parted in sleep. Her breaths even and peaceful. Steve mirrored her breathing. He finally regained focus enough to see the joystick. He hit the controls to tilt the vertical takeoff and landing hydraulics to tilt the Rolls Royce engines vertically so the exhaust aimed directly into the sand. The Harrier lurched skyward like a drunken sailor, weaving all over the place until they finally got enough height to ease the controls horizontal.

"Stay with me, buddy!" Clint shouted. "You've got to stay with me. Get it aimed forward and then I'll do all the rest."

The odd thought that Clint could have just leaped onto his glider and abandoned him flitted through his mind. Why? Why had Clint chosen _him _instead of Natasha. The sound of the jet began to sound very far away as it felt like he was slipping beneath the water into the ice. No! Forward. He had to get the plane moving forward. The Harrier felt as though it were being tossed about on a sea, the sound of volcanic ash hitting the intake valves sounding like an aboriginal rain stick. He shoved the VSTOL forward in a maneuver that would have gotten any pilot kicked out of aviation school. There was a heart-stopping moment of free fall until the plane lurched forward, like a rock shot out of a slingshot. There was nothing elaborate or pretty about the flight as Clint took over and jackrabbited it forward.

He had no idea how long they were in the air. It was the fear in Clint's voice which brought him back to awareness.

"I see an airstrip," Clint shouted. "I see a plane sitting on the runway. I think there's enough runway to put this thing down."

Steve's head smacked against the glass canopy as they banked left and approached for a landing on the darkened runway, the only running lights being the fiery red glow of the erupting volcano. A boxy looking airplane sat on the field. Clint eased the jet in for a short-runway landing, smart enough to realize there was no way in hell Steve could get them down alive using the VSTOL feature of the engine. Something looked strange about the boxy plane. The engines gave a horrid whine and crapped out, clogged from volcanic ash heated into glass-like obsidian. The wheels hit the ground and bounced, slamming his head forward. The plane skidded sideways down the runway and smashed into a hill, the impact causing Steve to lose consciousness once more.

X

A dark-skinned man peered into his face.

"John Frum. You return to us."

"We've got to get him out of here," Clint said. "He's dying."

"Bad magic," the dark skinned man said. "John Frum not die. We no let him die."

Their voices sounded far away. As though he was hearing them from under the water. Steve shrieked as a dozen hands undid his harness and lifted him out of the shattered jet. He could feel something in his gut. Not just his wounds. Something else. It felt as though something were trying to tear apart his intestines from the inside.

"Black magic," the dark skinned man said. "We fix."

"Steve," Clint said. "We crash landed. But these people are friendly. They're going to help you. You just hang on.

Their voices got further and further away. As though he were slipping beneath the water, the ice reclaiming him. It beckoned to him whispering promises of an end to his pain. So easy to just take a breath and let the icy water flow into his lungs. Bernice. He struggled to stay above the surface. To not let Time take him away from her.

X

Singing.

A clacking sound. As though someone was banging on a cow bell.

Shapes. Men dancing. Demons clothed in palm fronds and rags. The sky had an angry red glow. The men sang to beat back the sky.

The old man was back in his face, shaking a rattle.

"John Frum … sorcerer try to take you. Black magic. We try to fix."

"Drink this Steve," Clint said. "They said it will make this easier."

Steve whimpered as his head was lifted and a gourd lifted to his lips, even the tiniest movement increasing his pain. Acrid black liquid was poured down his throat. He gagged.

"There's some kind of weapon broken off inside your gut," Clint said. Tears streaked down his face. He grabbed Steve's hand and gave it a firm squeeze. "You've got to hang on. The radio is dead. This is the best I can do for you until I can go get help."

Whatever hallucinogen was in the black liquid made him feel as though he were floating out of his body, into the midst of the dancers as they chased off the evil spirits Steve could see lurking in the shadows, waiting to drag him from this world. Time. The shaman understood he was battling time. And losing…

So much pain…

_Soft lips touched his, whispering his name._

"Bernice."

_"Have you forgotten me already?"_

"This is going to hurt me almost as much as it hurts you," Clint said.

Pain tore through his belly as the old shaman reached right into his abdomen and fished around as though he were digging in a sack. Only the peculiar sensation of floating kept him aware of what was going on, if he was even conscious. The dancers sang and beat the shadows with sticks, beating back whatever darkness had come for him. The most primitive culture in the world understood the concept of battling time. An awful sound offended his ears. He realized it was his own voice, screaming as the old man found what he was looking for and tore it out of his belly.

_A red-gloved hand caressed his cheek._

_"Hold on, Steve. _

_"Peggy."_

"What the fuck is that?" Clint asked.

"You be okay now, John Frum," the old man said. He held something long and black in front of Steve's face. "We remove the black magic. Sorcerer lose his power over you now."

A claw. Stuck into his belly like a pin into a voodoo doll. Whatever Natasha had broken off inside of him, it still moved, snapping at the shaman as though it were still alive. The old man spat upon it and threw it into a bonfire which had been lit on one of the corners where the dancers danced, beating cowbells and singing songs to chase away the evil spirits that Steve could see.

He felt as though he were no longer in his body. The pain subsided as he was drawn towards the dancers. The dance changed, no longer a native dance but the jazzy tones of a big brass band, couples moving together as they danced a jitterbug. He realized he was laying on the floor of the Stork Club.

_"Are you just going to just lay there?"_

_Steve looked up, perplexed. How had he gotten onto the floor? He clambered to his feet, embarrassed he'd somehow stumbled._

_"Peggy?" _

_Where was he? Why did he feel like he was in the wrong place?_

_"Have you had enough?" Peggy asked, beautiful as always in that red dress she wore so well. She took a drag of her cigarette and blew it towards two burly men who came up to ask her to dance._

_Steve looked around the Stork Club at the dancing couples. There was no sign of Bucky. Peggy held out a red-gloved hand._

_"Are you ready to give me that dance?" Peggy asked. Her mouth said the words, but her dark eyes said 'no.' That -same- disapproving look she'd always given him whenever she'd urged him to become more. Was this some sort of test?_

_He was supposed to remember something. What was he supposed to remember?_

_Bernice. An angel come down from heaven to grace his wedding bed. Raven hair draped across a swanlike neck, lips parted in sleep, as her chest rose and feel. Such rosy, pink cheeks. Cheeks that were alive. He understood that if he accepted this dance, he could never return to her._

_"I'm a married man now," Steve said. He gave Peggy a rueful grin. "I let you go? Remember? It was what you wanted."_

_Peggy's lips turned up in a smile. The room changed, no longer the Stork Club in 1945, but a great white hall stretching as far as the eye could see. Tables ran in long rows, laid out with an elaborate feast. Men and women from across eons and species, including non-humans, dined together, telling lewd jokes and slapping each other on the back as they drank to each other's health. _

_He saw Dum Dum Dugan. And Gabriel Jones. And the other men he'd served with in 1945. He also saw Hernandez, the soldier who'd died after the helicarrier went down. And countless others he'd served with over the years . At the far end of the hall, a fierce looking bearded man with a winged helmet sat upon a throne. Odin one-eye. Thor's father. Only the eye which could see into -this- realm was the opposite eye of the one that still worked in the mortal one. The All-Father raised his tankard and gave Steve a toast, then turned his attention back to things he watched whenever he entered the Odin-sleep, the All-Father's way of keeping one foot in the mortal world, the other in the realm of the gods._

_"Where's Bucky?" Steve asked._

_Peggy's smile turned sad. She stepped back, no longer wearing her red dress, but armor. A winged helmet appeared upon her head, a sword at her side._

_"You're a Valkyrie?"_

_"What -else- would they do with me after the life I've led?" Peggy said, giving him a wolfish grin. She touched the wings which fluttered upon her helmet like living wings. Wings like he had painted onto -his- helmet, only her wings were real. "You just might make it yet. If you don't screw things up."_

_She placed her hands on either side of his face for a kiss, exhaling into his lungs. His pain returned as the light of the great hall grew blinding white. She released him, her lips lingering a bit longer than was necessary as she gave him a kiss goodbye._

_"Take good care of my granddaughter, okay?" Tears glistened in her eyes. She sniffed and pretended to cough, even in death far too pragmatic to let Steve see her cry. "She's very special."_

_Peggy stepped back, the light of the great hall fading as she left. The native dancers huddled around the light where she had stood, protecting it from the darkness until whatever portal they had opened into the other world had fully closed, keeping it safe. _Steve became aware once more of his own pain. Of Clint kneeling at his side, openly sobbing. He gasped for breath. The old man peered into his eyes.

"See … I tell you," the old man said. "You no believe. This John Frum. Sorcerer can't kill. John Frum's magic too strong. He be okay now."

"Clint?" Steve whispered.

"Steve!" Clint grabbed his hand, causing Steve to wince in pain. "Man … Steve … for a few minutes there we thought you were a goner! You stopped breathing."

"An old friend brought me back," Steve said.

The pain was overwhelming, but that sensation of having something writhing in his gut was now gone. It hurt to breath, but if he took shallow breaths, he could bear it. Everything had an eerie glow about it as the dawn climbed above the horizon, ash from the erupting volcano giving the sunrise a fiery red glow. It looked like … the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

"We send runner to nearby village," the old man said. "Get radio left by John Frum's friends _last _time he come here."

The old man handed Clint a ham radio straight out of 1945. Like most of the older, simpler technology, the thing still worked.

"This is Hawkeye calling CQ CQ CQ," Clint called into the microphone. "Base … this is Hawkeye … can anybody hear me?" He tried several more frequencies until a voice finally came over the radio. A fishing vessel. But whoever was on the other end was involved in the search for debris of the crashed mother ship. They said they would relay a message to whoever was in charge.

The old man gestured to the men who had danced the Rom dance, dressed now in nothing but the peculiar woven bark baskets men wore over their private parts and the women in grass skirts.

"They say you no come back here, not real," the old man said. "But I tell them no lose hope. False god come from volcano, pretend to be you. I know _not _you. Keep people from going to worship him. I glad you come back, make evil spirits go away. Now … the others believe."

"I'm not a god," Steve said. "I'm just a soldier."

The old man pulled out a carefully preserved propaganda poster framed in glass. _Buy War Bonds. _On the poster was a picture of Steve in his 1942 stage costume, punching out Adolf Hitler. They thought _he _was John Frum?

"You take me to volcano, remember?" The old man said. "Tell me to work hard. Keep nose clean. Someday I _be _somebody. Now … I medicine man. And you … you are still young."

"You're that kid," Steve said. He'd really liked that kid. The old man had to be over 70 years old now.

"You sleep now," the old man said. He made a motion over Steve's eyes. All of a sudden, Steve couldn't stay focused, as though someone had given his mind a command to _sleep _and he wanted nothing better than to obey.

X

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_Feedback always welcome! Love it. Hate it. Wishes. Shout it out and whatever it is, I'll write it, fix it, or grant it if at all possible! Feedback makes writers write better prose!_

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_Images/video clips posted: John Frum cult ceremonies, John Frum landing strip, Vanuatu attire, black magic Rom dance._

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	53. Chapter 53

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**ciro, Jelsemium, Arrows the Wolf, m1dnight217, blown-transistor, LEPrecon, Adamantium Rose, Qweb, RipplesOfAqua, Afternoon on a hill, Guest, Courtney, lazarus73, Marianne Silver, gryffindorgal87, WantFanFics, Penny Tortoishell, Mystewitch, Katya Jade, **_

_Special thanks to __**Jelsemium **__and__** Mystewitch**__, who both caught some little boo-boos. And __**Katya Jade, **__who caught a clunky big one!_

_I'm at a writers conference 8am - 10pm all this week and writing dribs and drabs on the fly, so if I get too veggie-brain on stuff, please be sure to call me on it! Don't want to write crap!_

_Just a reminder … I try to answer people who leave reviews personally (except for tonight … I just got back from a conference late and wanted to post this) … but if you're not signed in to ffnet then there is no link that comes with your wonderful email for me to reply to._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

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Chapter 53

The door slammed open, smacking into the wall.

"We found him!"

Bernice looked up from where she'd taken shelter in the corner of the room, the feel of two walls and the floor pressing against her back giving her a physical sense of security. The ship, itself, was giving her the hug the soldiers buzzing outside the door were too clueless to understand she needed.

"Wh-what?"

"They found him," Corporal Ivanko repeated.

Bernice wiped the snot trailing down her face with her sleeve, struggling to her feet. She had the same numb disbelief now, now that she'd caught a glimpse of the volcano where Steve had died and been forced to accept the fact they would probably never find his body, then when Miss Potts had first told her yesterday that he was missing. Dead? Ivanko helped her to her feet, holding her elbow to steady her.

"Is he…?"

"Alive!" Ivanko grabbed her hands and squeezed them. "They found Colonel Rogers and Agent Barton alive! Director Fury told me to come get you right away."

The Marine tugged her towards the door. Bernice followed, so happy that all of a sudden she thought she might float down the hall. Ivanko led her to the bridge, where the look on Director Fury's face caused her jubilation to be short-lived.

"Mr. Fury?"

Nick Fury wore that _same _guarded expression he'd had the day he'd come to Grandma Peggy's nursing home to expose her as a fraud.

"He's badly wounded." Mr. Fury's one good eye was filled with worry. "We don't have a lot of information. A medevac chopper has been sent to airlift him out of there."

"What about Natasha?" Anger rose in her veins at the mere mention of the shape shifters name.

"She's dead." Mr. Fury pointed to the row of radios and radio operators lining one edge of the bridge. "Agent Barton is on an open civilian frequency. We can't ask him to convey any more information until we get him someplace secure for a debriefing."

Dead. The bitch was dead. Oh, thank god! If the idiots had listened to Steve's instincts about the viper in their midst instead doubting him, all of this could have been avoided! She suppressed the urge to blurt out something stupid, such as '_Steve told you so_' right into Director Fury's face. There was no reason for her to be here except Pepper Potts had been compassionate enough to drag her along. Nick Fury was humoring her. If she wanted to have these kinds of privileges the _next _time Steve was missing or injured, then she'd better play nicely with the man who had the power to simply send her home.

Oh, god! The next time? She couldn't even think about that right now…

"Thank you." Bernice forced a ghost of a grateful smile. It was all she was able to manage, so badly did she want to break down and blubber. But this was Steve's world. The world of her grandmother. The world her grandmother had discouraged her children from entering because this world was so harsh.

Corporal Ivanko bustled her through the city-sized ship, a labyrinth of endless identical corridors, until they burst into the sunlight on the landing deck. Her arms wrapped around her body as though wearing a straightjacket, cold even though it was summer in the southern hemisphere. She searched each new helicopter which landed, hoping it was the one. Man and machine buzzed around the helicarrier, stowing equipment and gear as though they were hornets storing food for the coming winter. She realized by the swell of the ship and rocking horizon that the USS Gerald Ford was no longer airborne. It had landed sometime in the past several hours, flight of something so enormous a glorious waste of taxpayer money and fuel. She had been so distraught, she had not even noticed.

A peculiar two-propeller helicopter came to rest right in front of the command turret. Around her, medics and the ship's doctor waited with a gurney, ready to take Steve into surgery the moment his plane landed. The rear tailgate of the helicopter slid down. Men rushed out carrying a litter with a dark green body bag.

Body bag?

"Steve!"

Bernice cast off the arm of Ivanko and rushed towards him, no longer able to contain her grief. Too late! They had been too late to save him? She shoved past a man carrying a pint of blood, his arm raised high to filter the life giving substance into the bag. The image struck her as … odd. She keened Steve's name again and again, trying to get past the six men carrying his body so she could see him for herself. Ivanko grabbed her from the rear and held her in a bear hug, preventing her from throwing herself on top of her husband's body. The medics lifted the body bag onto a wheeled gurney.

"He's alive," Ivanko said. "Mrs. Rogers … it's okay … he's alive. It's just a hot pocket. That's all. To hold in his body heat. See … they cut out a hole for his face so he can breathe."

Bernice made a strange, guttural sound, unable to decide whether to shriek with madness or laugh hysterically with joy. His face! He was all scratched up, but she could see his face. And his arm... The man holding the pint of blood rushed alongside, Steve's arm jutting out of a slit cut into the side of the body bag so they could get some blood into him. Ivanko let go of her the moment the medics strapped him to the gurney so he wouldn't fall off.

"Steve!" She threw herself at the gurney, grabbing the one part of him she could hold. His hand.

Steve opened his eyes and smiled as though she were the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

"Hey, angel." Steve reached up to touch her cheek. "Don't cry. I'm going be okay."

Bernice nodded, so happy to see him responsive that there were no words to express her relief except for the tears streaming down her cheeks. The medics moved the gurney forward, a strange little parade as they worked their way through the ship to the medical bay. With so many men jammed into a corridor, it was all she could do to keep up with him.

"We've got to let the docs fix him up, Ma'am," Corporal Ivanko said, his face filled with understanding. "This ain't no big-city hospital. We're all going to have to wait out here. So the docs have room to work."

Bernice clutched Steve's hand, unwilling to let him go. She didn't care _what _they said. She wasn't going to let him out of her sight!

"He's right, baby," Steve said. He gave her hand a squeeze, surprisingly lucid for a man zipped into a body bag. "You just wait and I'll be out in a little while."

He was pale. So pale that his eyes glowed blue like the tropical sky, almost unearthly in their color. As though he had looked into the world beyond and said 'no thanks.' It had been the first detail she had noticed about him, that day in the hallway outside her grandmother's room in the nursing home, how blue his eyes were. She wiped her cheek and nodded, stepping back. Her fingertips lingered against his, reluctantly releasing his hand as the medics pushed the gurney into the operating room. The door shut in her face. Locking her out. Where she couldn't make sure he didn't slip away from her as they worked on his injuries were.

She turned and stared into a face that was even _more _sorrowful than hers was…

"I'm sorry." Agent Barton's eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. His face reminded her of one of those big ugly bulldogs, long and sad. Steve had worried Agent Barton was involved with the shape shifter, but he'd also said the archer had helped him save the lady in the Triskelion the day it was attacked. Bernice didn't know _what _to think of him. She'd only met him once. Briefly. At Miss Potts birthday party. He hadn't seemed involved with _that bitch _then. The one who'd set Steve up. May she rest in Hell!

"Corporal Ivanko said you saved his life?" Bernice asked, the _real _question she wished to ask hanging in the air between them.

Agent Barton swallowed and sniffed, his eyes aimed up at the ceiling as he cleared his throat. He had the look about him of a man trying very hard not to cry.

"Yeah, I guess I did," Agent Barton said. His eyes met hers, filled with sorrow. "I just wish I'd acted sooner."

He turned and walked away, his shoulders stooped as though he carried the weight of the world upon them. It was a look Bernice was familiar with. The look Steve had whenever work began to weigh too heavily upon him. She wanted to run up and give the man a hug, but she didn't really know Agent Barton. She watched until he disappeared then turned to stare at the door where Steve would emerge from surgery.

A hand touched the back of her shoulder.

"Miss Potts?" Pepper's eyes had dark circles under them from lack of sleep, her makeup long ago worn off. Her suit looked crumbled, and her usually perfectly sleek hair looked as frizzy as red witches hair.

"How's Steve doing?"

"He was conscious," Bernice said. "And Mr. Stark?"

Miss Potts gave Bernice a weak smile, her skin pale beneath her freckles.

"The usual." Miss Potts rolled her eyes, but not in the disrespectful way a teenager might do. It was more of a '_heaven help me' _kind of eye-roll. The kind her grandmother sometimes gave whenever one of the grandchildren got a wacky idea.

"Come," Miss Potts said. "There's a conference room just down the hall. The doctors will look for you there."

She led Bernice to a Spartan meeting room with a table and chairs. She sat with Bernice, waiting even though it was _Bernice's _husband who was undergoing surgery and not Mr. Stark.

"Miss Potts," Bernice asked. "Agent Barton … is he going to be okay?"

Miss Potts looked straight through her, as though she were looking at some event in her past. She looked very sad.

"No," Miss Potts said. "He loved her. Natalie … she was the only woman he ever loved."

"They didn't say how…" Bernice asked.

"Clint killed her," Pepper said. "It was her, or Steve. Clint chose Steve."

Oh, god. No wonder the man looked so miserable! He'd killed his beloved to save her husband? How she wished now she'd given him that hug!

They sat in silence, waiting. It was nice of her boss to wait with her. She knew Miss Potts had more important things to do.

"How do you do it?" Bernice asked. "How do you live like this? Not that … I mean … I knew what I was taking on when I married him but, well, I guess I just … didn't."

Miss Potts gave her a wistful smile.

"You love them as best you can while you've got them," Miss Potts said. "Knowing that at any minute, you could lose them. Never forget that. That any moment you could lose them."

She gave a little laugh, as though laughing at some funny joke only _she _knew.

"It puts everything else into perspective."

Many hours later, the doctor came out. Bernice trembled until the doctor pulled off his mask. He looked exhausted … but was smiling.

"We got another piece of that … whatever the hell it was … out of him," the doctor said. "Everything else … it's amazing. I've never seen perforated bowels just close up and heal like that. Not even in one of the recipients of the infinity serum."

"Can I..?"

"Just give the nurse ten minutes to get him settled into sick bay," the doctor said. "And then you can go sit with him. The patient always does better if somebody is there for them. He'll be out for a few hours. But you can pull up a stool and sit with him until the anesthesia wears off."

The doctor turned to Miss Potts and gave her a mock impersonation of Director Fury's 'hairy eyeball.'

"Or wait until nobody's looking," the doctor continued. "And curl up in the bed next to him like _some _people think I haven't noticed them doing. Miss Potts."

Pepper gave the doctor an enigmatic smile.

Bernice followed the gurney as they rolled it out into the sick bay. At one end Mr. Stark lay grousing about not wanting to stay in bed any longer. Thor give him good-natured insults about Midgardians lazing around all day. Miss Potts headed over and put the bickering brute-boys firmly into their places, instilling order. Sick bay had other wounded from the battle yesterday, but most of the other injuries either weren't that severe or had already been airlifted out of here to a real hospital. Bernice waited until the nurse cleared out then scooted into the empty bed next to Steve, the twin-sized frames swaying on chains suspended from the ceiling. She wiggled as close as she could to the edge and laced her fingers through his hand. Thirty-plus hours of exhaustion caught up with her as she drifted off to sleep.

She woke up to the feel of somebody touching her hair.

"Steve?"

"All I could think of was how I was going to get back to _you _," he said.

Bernice edged closer, ignoring the uncomfortable bars in the middle between the rows until the upper half of her body was on _his _side of the support strut.

"Then we had that thought in common," Bernice said. She stared at the bandages wrapped around his abdomen. Whatever Natasha had done to him, she had a feeling any other man wouldn't have survived. She shivered. She would ask him about it later. But right now, she didn't want to know. Instead, she scooted close enough to kiss him and curled up in the narrow space between where he lay and the bar jammed into her back. She didn't care. Nor did she care about the curious looks the other patients gave them both. This was her _husband_. She had a ring on her finger that said she was _supposed _to curl up at his side.

"I've never been so happy in my life," Steve murmured. His eyelids grew heavy as his body cast him into that strange heavy sleep he experienced every time he was badly injured. The sleep that healed.

After more than thirty hours without sleep herself, Bernice followed him into the dream realm, not caring about the bar digging into her back. She was just barely conscious of somebody tossing a blanket over them both.

X

_Note: _ _I feel bad for poor Clint right now. Perhaps I should do something about that in the next chapter?_

_Feedback always welcome! Love it. Hate it. Wishes. Shout it out and whatever it is, I'll write it, fix it, or grant it if at all possible! Feedback makes writers write better prose!_

_Don't forget I've got extra notes, images, and video clips dug up while researching this chapter at my special facebook page. Hop on over for a peek and, if you want to get tidbits hours before I post the next chapter to see what I'm mulling over, click 'like' on the page. I promise … no spam!_

_Images/video clips posted: 'Hot Pocket,' carrier surgery and medical bay, V-22 Osprey, medevac, valkyrie._

_Soundtrack: Black is the Color - Salmon's Leap_

_Link (replace +dot+ with '.' and close up spaces):_

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	54. Chapter 54

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Adamantium Rose, La Bella Figura, ciro, fiducia, Qweb, pizzagirl, warrior princess 122, blown-transistor, LEPrecon, Aireon Maris, Katya Jade, RipplesOfAqua, Undapper Thoughts, Jelsemium, Courtney, ChildOfFury93, Leoness, addy, Mystewitch, Arrows the Wolf, WantFanFics, Penny Tortoiseshell, Marianne Silver, **_

_I am at a very expensive, very exclusive writer's conference all this week listening to publishers, editors and agents tell me what they want. The following chapter is pure, gratuitous fluff. Any good editor would lop it out of the story because it doesn't really further the main plot and detracts from my two POV characters. But it's my story, dammit! And you guys asked for it! And I feel bad for poor broken-hearted Clint because, believe it or not, I like both of them! So here it is!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 54

"All right everybody," Nick Fury shouted above the din. "Everybody who isn't on death's door, get the hell out!"

Doctors and nurses looked up, then down at their patients. Bernice was no super-spook, but she knew the onlyreason the debriefing was being held in here was because Steve was in no shape to be questioned otherwise. Behind Director Fury stood several stern looking military men with far too many bars on their uniforms and a man she recognized from the television as being the Secretary of State. _Big _guns. Doctors helped patients out of beds to other parts of the ship, several of them in wheelchairs. Even Mr. Stark was hustled out of the room, although Bernice knew he'd been called down for a debriefing earlier and was quite capable of hobbling along on his own, only suffering from a broken knee and a minor malfunction of his arc reactor Miss Potts insisted on making the doctors watch.

"It's okay." Steve gave her hand a quick squeeze. "It's just questions. That's all. Procedure. The Joint Chiefs need to know what I know."

"I'll go get a bite to eat," Bernice said. "Do you want anything?"

"Just you," Steve said. He glanced over at the doctor, who was restricting him to a liquid diet until his innards healed up, and lowered his voice. "And maybe a piece of chocolate cake from the mess hall? I'm starved." He shot her a fetching grin that made her heart skip a beat.

"Fat chance," Bernice said. "I'm afraid _I'm _the only dessert you're going to have for the next three days."

She gave him a kiss, lingering longer than she should. If only she was some kind of super heroine, like … no … the bitch … she didn't care _what _Steve said the bitch had been like before she'd been eaten or digested or whatever the hell the shape shifters did to their victims before they assumed their shapes. She had not known Natasha before, and no matter how much Steve or even Miss Potts seemed saddened by her death, Bernice simply could not summons an ounce of empathy for the woman who'd died when the shape shifter had decided to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. by taking her place.

Maybe she was no heroine, but there was no better example than Miss Potts that the loved one of an Avenger _could _make a difference in how they were treated by a government that looked upon them as little more than 'assets.' Bernice stopped in front of Director Fury and the important politician and generals who wanted to speak to her husband. She crossed her arms, her usually timid demeanor cast aside in light of the important the message she had to convey. She drew herself up to look as tall and intimidating as possible, the effect lessened by the fact the top of her head just barely came to Director Fury's chin.

"If you tire my husband so much as a nanosecond longer than he's capable of talking in his condition," Bernice said. "The shape shifters will be the _least_ of your worries. Do I make myself clear?"

She shot _all _of the generals, including the Secretary of State, a look her grandmother had always used to convey, without words, that something you were doing was falling short of her very high expectations. The disappointed grandmother look, they used to call it. The most horrible punishment any member of the Miller clan could possibly endure. She had been the recipient of those looks _herself _several times as a kid, though much less frequently than her brother. They'd always joked they'd just wished Grandma Peggy would drag them out to the woodshed and beat them with a switch instead of giving them _that _look.

She gave those very important men _that _look…

By the way they all leaned backwards, away from her disapproving glare, as she stood her ground between them and her husband, the message had been appropriately conveyed. Mr. Fury looked as though he wished to give her a high-five and say 'you go girl.' That is, he would if stern directors of super-secret agencies were _prone _to such fits of emotive behavior. Director Fury was _not._ But by the bemused expression on his face, he was suitably impressed by her pugnaciousness.

"You have my word, Mrs. Rogers," Mr. Fury said. "We will speak to him until he tires, and no longer." He gave her a respectful nod.

Bernice met each of their eyes. She looked down to their shoes, wrinkled up her nose as if something didn't meet her approval, and then tossed her head as though she found them lacking. She then stepped aside, allowing them to pass. She filtered past two stern-looking guards assigned to accompany the oh-so-very-important people who wished to debrief her husband. Goons. Meant to intimidate her. She shot them her most winning, innocent grin. Just to piss them off. They were not amused. They shut the door to the sick bay and stepped in front of it, barring her entrance.

So much for super-heroine. But she'd made her point. And besides, she needed to take care of more immediate needs, such as finding a ladies room in the still male-dominated aircraft carrier. It seemed the military didn't really care _who _used the facilities, only labeling everything 'bathroom.' The _good _part about that was that there wasn't any line.

Refreshed and with clean hands, she made her way down to the mess hall. People made jokes about food in the military, but the scents that filtered down the hall to tempt her long before she even found the actual room would have rivaled any five-star New York City restaurant. The food all looked fresh and wonderful, as _everything _had looked fresh and wonderful ever since the doctor had come out of surgery and told her that her husband was expected to make a full recovery. Baked chicken. Chipped steak with gravy. Macaroni and cheese. And more mashed potatoes than the entire state of Maine.

She was usually pretty careful about what she ate, not wishing to gain weight, but today, she didn't care. She told the seaman behind the serving station to keep the mashed potatoes coming, and coming, and coming. _Real _mashed potatoes, she could tell. Good and lumpy. The way Aunt Vera liked to make them. The soldiers on either side of her began to elbow each other and whisper when she had the seaman top it off with enough gravy to drown a whale. It struck her how much her plate looked like the erupting volcano, brown magma trailing down the sides into the chunk of chicken on one side and chipped beef on the other, having decided to give _both _dishes a try, all topped off with a pyroclastic flow of peas and carrots.

"And I'll have a piece of chocolate cake," Bernice said with a smile. With Steve okay, the whole world was her oyster. "Make that _two _pieces of chocolate cake. And a cookie. In case I need it for later."

Balancing her obscenely overloaded tray past the curious glances of seamen, Marines, and what looked like a few other branches of the military thrown in for good measure, she stared across the sea of strangers for a place to sit. There were three groups of men clustered around the tables closest to the serving station, it being a bit late for supper, and then the rest of the cafeteria was empty. At the far end, seated alone, was Agent Barton, his head propped up by his hand holding up his chin, as he slowly smeared his mashed potatoes and gravy together into a pool of beige sludge.

He looked miserable…

Stiffening her shoulders to appear more forward than she really felt, she walked down to Agent Barton's table.

"Do you mind if I sit down?"

For a moment she questioned whether he was one of the possessed drones, so long did it take him to look up from the sculpture he'd been creating out of smashed potatoes and peas, but the look of pain in his red-rimmed eyes as he squinted up at her as though he wasn't even sure where he really was alleviated those concerns. One thing the drones all had in common was a flat affect whenever they flinched or had a brain fart. This was no brain fart. This was Agent Barton walking around in the _same _fog that _she _had been in not even yesterday.

"Sure." He gestured to the empty seats.

Bernice sat down and pretended to be interested in her food. Agent Barton continued his attempts at mashed potatoes sculptures, too absorbed in his own miserable world to pay attention to anything she did. Every now and again, his cheek would twitch as though he were remembering things from his past. Some of the memories happy. Most of the memories sad. She knew how he felt, although at least _her _grief had found a happy ending.

"Steve said if it wasn't for you," Bernice said. "He wouldn't have gotten out of there alive."

He shrugged.

Steve had said the sharp-shooting archer was a man of very few words. Even fewer than Steve. Steve only spoke when he had something to say, but he was not taciturn. Only thoughtful. Agent Barton was downright reticent. But whether or not the super-agent wished to speak, the fact remained that Bernice owed him big time.

"I'm sorry," Bernice said. "I'm sorry you lost …" She couldn't make herself say the name. They were now certain the Black Widow had been a shape shifter the entire time Bernice had been dating Steve. Definitely at Miss Pott's birthday party. She had never met the woman who had existed _before _the shape shifter had gotten his hands on her. The one even Steve was grieving, explaining one of the reasons he had been so hesitant to point the finger at her and shout 'mole' was because Natasha _had _been one of the first people he'd been able to bond with after waking up 67 years out of time. Bernice wasn't certain what, exactly their relationship had been at the time the archer had done her in. Girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend? Friend?

He looked up, the red around his eyes making them appear all the more blue. He looked right back down, stirring the mashed potatoes.

"I'm the one who should be sorry."

He began to scoop the unsightly beige substance over to one side of his tray. Bernice waited. If there was one thing she'd learned from being around men with a propensity for speaking few words, it was to shut up and wait for them to gather their thoughts. If you were patient and didn't push, a lot of the time you could get them to open up. It was less forward than giving him the hug she _wished _she'd given him outside the surgery room. When those words were not forthcoming, even though she could tell the archers heart was broken, she decided to try a different tact.

"Mr. Stark put me in charge of studying the Chitauri for patterns of odd behavior," Bernice said softly. "I'm the person who noticed the delay in their reaction times. I know it's painful … having just lost a team mate. But maybe … if we knew what we were looking for, maybe we can avoid this happening to someone else in the future?"

The spoon stopped. He began to press a hole into the middle of the greyish-brown mass. Turning it into a miniature mashed potato volcano like the one erupting outside their ship. She waited a long time, leaving the question hanging between them, until the silence grew uncomfortable. Even for _him._

"Natasha had a certain … skill set," he said. The spoon crushed down on one wall of the potato volcano. "The Kremlin indoctrinated her when she was six years old. Turned her into a weapon. She never trusted … anybody."

Uneaten peas were scooped from the center compartment of the tray onto the pile of mashed potatoes. His chicken breast sat untouched. Bernice waited. He mashed the peas down into the potatoes until they disappeared.

"I was supposed to kill her," he said. "Way back … oh … a long time ago. I … couldn't. But when her government found out I was on her trail, they _assumed _she'd been compromised and gunned her down. I ended up saving her, instead."

The carrots were next to end up in the mashed potato volcano. He scooped around the edges of the pile as though it were a dairy whip cone, seeing how tall and thin he could get the greyish-beige pile with glops of peas and carrots dotting the slops like trees.

"Funny thing was," he said. "If they hadn't tried to kill her, she would have remained loyal to them until the day she died." He mashed his spoon straight through the mashed potato mountain, cutting it in half. "Natasha was like that."

"When did you begin to notice something amiss?" Bernice asked. His shoulders stiffened. She knew he would not answer her unless she couched the question as duty. "We have videos. Security camera footage from here and there. Lots of it. It would help me if you could help me narrow it down."

He began to shape the mess on his plate back into a mountain.

"After the incident down here," he said, "she was in a coma for nearly a month. Everybody else gave up hope, but I kept talking to her. She told me when she woke up that she could hear me. That it had felt as though she was trapped inside her body and couldn't get out. She … she was always distrustful. Kept everyone at a distance. But after that, it seemed like she finally trusted me. She … we …"

He didn't finish. He didn't need to. How many years had he carried a torch for her, only to be rebuffed again and again because she feared letting someone get too close? Bernice had friends like that. Friends who'd been burned one too many time and kept people at a distance. _'Shriends'_ they called people. Shallow friends.

He looked up and Bernice could see the tears welling in his eyes.

"She told me she thought she was going crazy," he said. "As though there was someone peeking into her head and sometimes it felt as though she were losing control. She was terrified the others would find out. So I kept it a secret."

He refocused his attention on the food tray. His spoon mushed a caldera back into the mashed potato mountain. He began to swirl inside of it, pushing the food-volcano wider and wider until there was a huge hole in the center.

"I'm sorry," he said. "If I'd said something, maybe you guys could have helped her before she … before she … "

His shoulders began to shake in the sob he was preventing by sheer force of will from escaping his lips. Bernice felt as though _she _wanted to cry _for _him. She reached out and took the hand holding the spoon before those poor helpless mashed potatoes had to endure any more of his pain.

"You loved her," Bernice said softly so her voice wouldn't carry across the mess hall. "Of course you protected her. I would have done the same thing for Steve."

He sniffed and wiped at his eyes with his other hand, but he didn't pull away the one she'd rescued from mashed potato hell. It was obvious that he needed to talk, but the nature of his lover's death made it impossible to speak to the others.

"In the videos they keep having me watch," Bernice said. "Looking for patterns. I saw something."

"They told me you saw her shape shift," he said. "In the videos. I had … I had no idea when I shot her that she was … that … thing."

He yanked his hand away from her and turned away, the shudder of his shoulders indicating he couldn't look at her without crying. God? He hadn't known it was a shape shifter when he'd shot her? And he'd _still _chosen Steve?

"It was all one big lie," he whispered, his face turned away.

"I noticed … I … uh … at Miss Potts birthday party," Bernice stammered. "I noticed you weren't _with _her. When did she … you … I'm sorry. I don't mean to pry."

"You mean when did she suddenly stop acting like she cared about me and started giving me the cold shoulder?" he asked. He turned back to her, anger in his eyes.

"Yes."

"Right after that mission where we captured the aliens," he said. "She was really upset we'd left Count Rugen alive. I tried to comfort her and she damned near cut my head off."

"Oh."

The spoon was back in his hand, smearing the mashed potatoes all over the front portion of the tray, so thin they were almost translucent.

"She didn't want anything to do with me after that."

"Is it possible the shape shifter might have taken her _then?"_

The spoon stopped. It started up again. He randomly stabbed into the mashed potatoes with the spoon, making jagged dashes into the mess.

"We searched that area extensively after we found the alien stronghold," he said. "We never found any unexplained bodies. If they killed her and took her place, we would have found something."

Bernice knew he desperately needed a hug. And also that the last person he wanted it from was _her._ She would give him the only thing she could.

"It wasn't your fault," Bernice said. "Steve said you were the only one to stick up for him to come search this island. We all…"

She thought of what it had felt like when Mike had dumped her with no warning.

"We all know what it feels like to be played for a fool and then betrayed," Bernice said.

The mashed-potato mashing stopped. She took his hand and gently pried the spoon out of it, placing the spoon on the plate next to him.

"I think these have suffered enough, don't you?"

He looked up, those sad blue eyes making her want to weep _for _him. Just twenty four hours ago, it had been _her _standing in his shoes. Only her story had a happy ending, while his did not.

"I'm going to figure this out," Bernice said. "I swear. I'm going to look at each and every video I have of her and I'm going to figure out when, exactly, they took her."

"I just want to know what was _real,_" he said softly.

"We'll figure it out," Bernice said. She _wanted _to say she was certain Agent Romanov had been swapped out for the shape shifter _after _he had finally gotten the woman of his dreams. That at least that part of his loss was _real. _But she sensed Agent Barton wasn't the kind of guy to listen to comforting platitudes just because it was what he wanted to hear. All she could do was stare at the various security videos that were floating about here and there and try to quantify somehow, with clear cut evidence, that what he had told her was real.

Bernice gave him a wistful smile.

"Steve wanted me to bring him a piece of chocolate cake," Bernice said. She slipped the second plate off of her tray and onto his, taking the mangled tray of smashed potatoes right out from under his nose and putting it on hers. "The doctor will have my head on a platter if I give him solid food. Perhaps you could do me the favor of eating it for him? I know chocolate always makes _me _feel better when life sucks."

She slid her tray off the table, along with his, and got up before he could tell her no.

"It was nice meeting you, Agent Barton," she said. "Thank you for saving my husband's life."

Before he could give her back the cake, she walked away and deposited the dead potatoes into the tray retrieval area and headed back to the sick bay. Whether the generals were done debriefing her husband or not, they were going to be done. Or else! She hadn't been _kidding _when she'd told them the shape shifters would be the least of their worries. For the first time, she felt like she had something the oh-too-important military types needed. Her sharp eye.

X

_Note: _ _So Clint is still heartbroken, and Natasha is still gone. But Bernice has come to understand there was a Natasha the others are all grieving who existed -before- she was taken/killed/murdered (won't say) and she has let know that nobody blames him for not pointing the finger at Natasha sooner._

_Feedback always welcome! Love it. Hate it. Wishes. Shout it out and whatever it is, I'll write it, fix it, or grant it if at all possible! Feedback makes writers write better prose!_

_Don't forget I've got extra notes, images, and video clips dug up while researching this chapter at my special facebook page. Hop on over for a peek and, if you want to get tidbits hours before I post the next chapter to see what I'm mulling over, click 'like' on the page. I promise … no spam!_

_Images/video clips posted: mess hall on an aircraft carrier._

_Soundtrack: Foolish Games - Jewel_

_Link (replace +dot+ with '.' and close up spaces):_

_w w w +dot+ facebook +dot+ c o m / pages / Anna-Erishkigal / 203837383044945?ref=hl_


	55. Chapter 55

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**MaliceArchangela, Neko Tiger, Adamantium Rose, Penny Tortoiseshell, fiducia, Arrows the Wolf, Kelly Jo, LEPrecon, Courtney, FinallyFallingAllOverAgain, Ocean's Eyes, Qweb, Mystewitch, WantFanFics, Marianne Silver, **__and __**pizzagirl.**_

_Sorry I'm a being a bit sloppy about proofreading and getting back to everybody right away the last few days. I'm at a conference all week 8am - 9pm and it's really cutting into my writing time. So keep sending me notices of writing blunders and, once the conference is over, I'll try to go back and correct things!_

_As for the ClinTasha shippers … big hug! No spoilers … but pay attention to the trail of breadcrumbs…_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 55

Steve hobbled into the room and stopped to smile.

"I thought you hated that thing?"

Bernice eased him over to _'that thing_.' That thing being the enormous, king-sized bed with the red, white and blue comforter shaped with the single star of the Puerto Rican flag, which _now _came complete with a matching dust ruffle, shams and curtains. She had obviously gone back to the store where he had bought them to complete the set.

"It kind of grew on me while you were gone."

Steve nuzzled the top of her head with his nose, the only part of her he could reach since he had a crutch under one arm and Bernice under the other. It was _good _to be home. Especially as that home now included a beautiful wife to curl up to, even if he was too banged up to do anything except snuggle for the time being.

"You know you _could _let mehelp you with that," Doctor Banner interrupted.

"No."

"Let him help," Steve said.

"No."

"I'm too heavy for you."

"I said no."

Steve shot Banner a smile. The doctor grinned and rolled his eyes when Bernice wasn't looking. For the past five days she had hovered like a miniature dragon, snapping and snarling at Nick Fury, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, and the President, who had stopped by the Walter Reid Medical Center to present him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom for exposing the hidden location of the Chitauri mother ship and also a Purple Heart. Tony Stark had been grumpy that _he _hadn't gotten a purple heart since _he _had also been injured. Since Tony wasn't affiliated with any branch of the military, the best he could get was a _civilian _medal of honor. Banner, Thor and Clint had also received medals, although Clint had excused himself as soon as the ceremony was finished.

Steve's grin was short-lived as he was forced to bend in the middle to sit on the edge of the bed. If he stood or lay down, he was fine. But the minute he had to bend, his scrambled guts screamed in protest. The medicines they had in this modern era dulled his pain just enough that he was beginning to grow antsy. Bed rest, bed rest, and more bed rest! If it wasn't for the fact the room began to spin one minute after he stood up, he'd go … work out … or something. Or better yet, make love to his wife.

"See!" Bernice scolded, shifting to prevent him from tumbling forward onto his head. "You can barely walk!"

Bruce stepped closer. Bernice shot him her best impersonation of Nick Fury's hairy eyeball. Bruce stepped back. Steve laughed, then yelped as the movement of laughter tore at the scar where they'd just removed the stitches. Bernice made him lay down, her manner nervous as she ran down the checklist the hospital had given her for at-home recovery.

"I _am _a doctor, you know, Bernice" Bruce said.

"You're one of _them,"_ Bernice scolded.

She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it aside to check his dressings. There were a few spots where the recently-removed stitches still oozed a pinkish-clear substance, but overall it was looking pretty good. Bernice peeled off the gauze, apologizing profusely when she ripped off a bit of blood that had stuck to the gauze.

"Resistance is futile," Bruce said. "You will be assimilated."

Bernice had looked like she was going to faint the first time the nurses removed the bandages and showed her the two jagged gashes which had sliced him from pelvis to sternum. But she was _determined _to free him for the military's clutches. Unless there was somebody at home who knew what they were doing, the military would not release him. Bernice had pestered the nurses to teach her how to conduct wound care over and over again until the doctors had finally relented and agreed to let him come home.

"Does that meet with your approval, Doctor Banner?" Bernice asked, her hand trembling even as he eyes met his in a confident stare that would have put Peggy to shame.

"I couldn't have done it better myself," Bruce said. "Would you like me to help you with the brace?"

"No."

She wrapped the elasticized surgical support brace around his abdomen to keep his insides inside, where they belonged, until the muscles knitted themselves back together. The doctors were certain that would happen, at his accelerated rate of healing, sometime within the next few weeks instead of the years it normally took, but they weren't taking any chances. Most likely, once he was fully healed, it wouldn't even leave a scar.

"I couldn't have done better myself," Bruce said.

Bernice grunted a response at Banner as she corralled him under the covers, pulling the comforter all the way up to his neck even though she knew he _hated _having the blanket come up any higher than his chest. He gave her the appropriate amount of grousing about not wanting to stay confined to bed, just to give her something to argue about, before she herded Bruce towards the door like a wayward steer.

"Out!"

"I'll be by tomorrow to check on you," Bruce said. He turned to Bernice. "Will you be into the lab tomorrow? Doctor Nyi is holding a staff meeting to brief your co-workers on the latest development. I'm going to speak."

"No."

"I've got a nurse all lined up to come check in on Steve."

"No."

"Bernice … I'll be fine," Steve interjected.

"No."

Bruce took off his glasses and put them in his tweed jacket pocket.

"We're going to be examining the footage of what might have happened to Natasha," Bruce said. "We don't know what we're looking for, but we need to figure out when S.H.I.E.L.D. was infiltrated so we know how much we may be compromised."

Bernice hesitated. She shot Steve a glance, her eyebrows knitted together in a troubled V.

"Two hours," Bernice said. "I want to compare footage of _before _she was injured, to immediately after she woke up, to the incident when you captured Count Rugen."

"Thanks," Bruce said. "I appreciate it."

Bernice's brown eyes met Steve's. "I'm not doing it for _you._ I'm doing it for Agent Barton. He saved Steve's life. The least I can do is help the poor man find a little peace."

Warmth welled up in Steve's heart. He was so blessed, to have earned the love of such a compassionate woman. He liked Bruce, but he was glad to see him leave, _finally _giving he and Bernice some much-needed time alone. Bernice had ignored the doctors and snuggled up beside him in the narrow hospital bed, but he was a big man and there had been little room for her to jam her slender frame in between _him _and the metal bed rail. This would be the first good night's, or more precisely, afternoon's, sleep they had both gotten since he'd left for Vanuatu.

"Come, love," Steve said. He sighed as she crawled in next to him and snuggled into his side, placing her free hand on his thigh, being the only place he wasn't healing from being sliced open, burned, or otherwise banged up by his adventures. Perhaps it was partially the pain killers, but he felt so languid and content that he wanted nothing better for the two of them to curl up in each other's arms for another 67 years. At least the aliens were all gone now! Or so they assumed. With the Chitauri mother ship destroyed, all they could do was assume the two still-missing Leviathan ships had dropped out of the sky the same as the ones had during the original invasion of New York.

His fingers tangled through her long, dark hair, Steve drifted off to sleep. Utterly content. It was finally over…

X

X

Mike Farrel shuffled through the case files on his desk, uninterested in the complex copyright litigation case he'd been assigned to pursue. The office had been in mourning all week. Ever since Wednesday, when word had come down from the highest echelons of Wolfram and Hart that Mr. Wolfram had died quietly in his sleep. Only the most senior litigators had ever met the partner who purportedly ran this branch office. To Mike's knowledge, _nobody _had ever met Mr. Hart. _Both _partners had to be well into their nineties.

Or at least that was what they had all _thought _until rumors had begun to circulate that Mr. Hart had suddenly appeared in the building and gone straight to the office which had been built for him, but remained empty since the American Radiator Building had been completed in 1924. Into the penthouse office where, purportedly, six construction workers had met their deaths under mysterious circumstances a few days before the building had been officially opened for business.

His telephone buzzed.

"Carol?" Mike asked, knowing it was the secretary he shared with three other junior associates.

"I just got a call down from Mr. Hart's office," Carol said, her voice filled with awe. "Mr. Hart would like for you to report to his office in twenty minutes."

"Mr. Hart?" Mike asked.

"That's what Mr. Wolfram's assistant said," Carol said.

Oh, god! He _knew _what this was all about. He'd been called into his bosse's office yesterday, inquiring about some irregularities on his client billing sheet! He'd made up some glib excuse as to why the expenses for private investigation across his entire caseload were so incredibly high, but his boss hadn't seemed convinced. It was with great trepidation he got into the elevator and rode all the way up to the eighteenth floor of the skyscraper. This place had always given him the creeps. It had a weird black gothic art deco style with gold trim. Even back in 1924, the building had been … weird. As though the idea for the thing had originated on another planet.

The doors slid open. Mr. Wolfram's secretary was a tall, stiff-faced man whose function none of the junior associates had ever been able to figure out. He didn't have a computer. He didn't take notes. He didn't handle case files. He just rode the elevator upstairs at precisely 7:45 a.m. every single morning and emerged out of the elevator at exactly 5:15 every afternoon. He didn't go to the water cooler. Or the cafeteria. Or even go out for lunch. The man just sat at his desk like a gargoyle, seated between the elevator and the two sets of doors to the now deceased Mr. Wolfram's office and the never-been-seen Mr. Hart's office as unmoving as a statue.

The man stood up and stepped in front of him, just a little too close to his personal space to be comfortable. Mike had seen the man on his way to the elevator many times, but this was the first time he'd ever stood this close. He craned his neck. He'd never noticed how very tall the senior partner's secretary was or the way even the tailored lines of his suit could not hide the man's muscular physique. Mike gulped. This was no secretary. This was a body guard.

"Mr. Hart will see you now," the man said smoothly and evenly, as though he were announcing the Queen of England in for a grand ball. He led Mike to the heavily carved black doors, inlaid with gold same as the exterior of the building. It was a strange scene depicted in the elaborately carved wood of some sort of hunt. If Mike didn't know better, he'd swear the elongated creatures depicted in the carvings were not even human.

The man opened the door and gestured for Mike to go inside. For some reason, it felt as though Mike were going in for his own execution. In a way, he knew he _was. _They'd bagged him misusing the investigatory resources of the law firm for his own purposes, digging into the history of Bernice's new boyfriend … correction … _ husband._ It wasn't a lot of money, at least not in the grand scheme of things in a law firm that spanned all seven continents and every country in the world. But the kind of digging he'd had to do to dig into the mystery man's past had required lots of bribes. Not just the usual digging he'd assumed when he'd asked the investigation department to start digging. And to get what few connections the firm had lord-only-knows-where inside the government to sing, it had taken a lot of cash.

The black leather chair had its back turned to him on an elaborately carved rosewood desk. If the two senior partners, now just one of them, had been here since 1924, they would have to be nearing one hundred years old. Mike looked for signs of an oxygen mask or cane expected of one so old. As Bernice's grandmother had needed.

"Sit down, Mr. Farrel," Mr. Hart said.

Mike sat in one of the enormous leather chairs. He was a pretty big guy. On the tall side of average and just a bit bigger through the shoulders than an average man. But for some reason, it was as though the chairs had been sized for a much bigger man. He couldn't recall his feet not being able to quite reach the floor like this since he had been in middle school.

"Mr. Hart."

"Do you know why you are here?"

Mike gulped.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you have anything to say on your own behalf?"

"This guy just shows up with no past," Mike said. "They said when I was hired we were supposed to look out for things like this. People who didn't belong in this country. I just thought … I was afraid …"

His voice trailed off. Mr. Hart did not alleviate his discomfort by filling in the blanks. _Or _by turning around.

"Continue, please, Mr. Farrel."

"The guy shows up with no past and has two million dollars wired into a bank account," Mike said. "And then he plunks down one and a half of that … cash … for some run down old gym right on the fringe of the Far East Side. He's got two different gangs running through the place day and night. And when I try to dig more, the cops tell me to back off."

The room was silent except for a sound Mike associated with somebody drumming their fingers together, deep in thought.

"You are aware that my … associate … suffered an unfortunate accident this past week?"

"I wasn't aware of how Mr. Wolfram died, Sir," Mike said. "I never had the privilege of meeting him."

"There was no privilege involved." Ice laced his voice. "Mr. Wolfram was given certain … goals … to achieve while I was gone. He failed to achieve them. Now it is up to _me _to clean up Mr. Wolfram's mess."

Mike waited for the axe to fall. He wished Mr. Hart would turn around and look him in the eye when he fired him instead of keeping the big leather chair turned towards the window. Rumor had it the sole remaining senior partner in the firm had been horribly disfigured in an accident and _that _was why nobody had ever seen him.

"I researched your employment record before I called you up here today," Mr. Hart said. "You were advised the young lady set an … undesirable … example for a partner in this law firm."

"Yes, Sir."

"And yet you felt compelled to dig into her new boyfriends past the moment she got over your betrayal and moved on," Mr. Hart said. "Am I stating the situation correctly?"

Mike felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. _Nobody _had ever stated it quite so bluntly.

"N-not … um … it wasn't like that," Mike said. "She was … her best friend came to me, all concerned. She thought Bernice was having some sort of nervous breakdown or something, chasing after some mystery guy nobody knew anything about. It sounded like … Al Qaida or something."

"It sounded like obsession," Mr. Hart said. "Pure and simple. Somebody moved in to take what was yours. You decided you were going to take it back. Have I stated the situation properly."

Mike felt as though he were a prey animal being run down in the brush, dodging the snapping jaws of the fox even as he grew tired and went to ground. At this point, being fired was a forgone conclusion. He wished to simply get it over with.

"Yes."

"That is an emotion I can relate to," Mr. Hart said. For some reason, a note of approval crept into his voice.

A pause.

"How much did she tell you about Steve Rogers past?"

"She didn't, Sir," Mike said. "All I know is that sometime between Thanksgiving and last Sunday she married him without telling anyone. Not even her best friend."

"You've remained friends with the Asian girl?"

"Yes," Mike said. "I … uh … I think she maybe has a thing for me."

"That could be useful."

"Sir?"

Another pause. The noose, tightening around his neck. Tick, tock, tick, tock. A methodical cat stalking and torturing a hapless mouse.

"If you'd like me to clear out my desk, Sir," Mike said. "I'll do so right away. I won't cause any trouble."

Silence.

That sound of fingers quietly drumming against one another in thought.

"Hmmm."

The chair turned around. Mike's jaw dropped to the floor as he stared not at the ninety-year-old senior partner he'd been expecting, but a man who looked to be little older than _he _was. Extremely tall. Blonde hair. Fair skin. A square, almost brutal jaw. And the most chilling blue eyes Mike had ever seen. A man who looked amazingly like…

"Impossible…"

"Mr. Frick," Mr. Hart said. "Please have security move Mr. Farrel's belongings into the corner office on the seventeenth floor. He's being elevated to full partner. Effective immediately."

X

X

_Note: It's time to reconcile the villain in the Avengers movie with the villain in Ultimate Avengers. I have been laying the trail of breadcrumbs all along. Who got to eat some before the birds devoured them all?_

_Feedback always welcome! Love it. Hate it. Wishes. Shout it out and whatever it is, I'll write it, fix it, or grant it if at all possible! Feedback makes writers write better prose!_

_Don't forget I've got extra notes, images, and video clips dug up while researching this chapter at my special facebook page. Hop on over for a peek and, if you want to get tidbits hours before I post the next chapter to see what I'm mulling over, click 'like' on the page. I promise … no spam!_

_Image posted: American Radiator Building NYC._

_Soundtrack: Beyond Good and Evil - Audiomachine_

_Link (replace +dot+ with '.' and close up spaces):_

_w w w +dot+ facebook +dot+ c o m / pages / Anna-Erishkigal / 203837383044945?ref=hl_


	56. Chapter 56

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Blue Moon Pie, ladymonsoar, Marianne Silver, Qweb, WantFanFics, LEPrecon, Arrows The Wolf, Adamantium Rose, Penny Tortoisehell, mythwriter, rEdRoSeSiNaUgUsT, fiducia, RipplesOfAqua, Neko Tiger, m1dnight217, goldenpuon, Courtney, Mystewitch, **__and __**lazarus73.**_

_Special thanks to __**Marianne Silver**__ and __**goldenpuon **__for pointing out some bugaboos in the last chapter. All fixed now! I learned at the writer's conference it takes 14 separate pairs of eyes looking at a book or story before it's ready to publish!_

_And since I was so brain dead from 6 days at the conference, instead of WRITING last night I took some time to go surfing through OTHER PEOPLE's fanfics! Great stuff! Once I'm done this story I'll have to cut back because work is beginning to pick up. I'm looking forward to just reading for a while._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 56

"_WHAT _on Earth do you think you're doing, Steve Rogers!?"

Uh-oh…

Three dozen heads, most of them under the age of seventeen, snapped in the direction of the doorway. Bernice stood, arms crossed, one finger tapping on the opposite forearm. Dark eyes bored into them like two dark stars, a look of displeasure that made even Vasco, leader of the Dominicans, wither.

"Busted," Lupe whispered.

Steve shot her his most fetching grin. A look he was learning turned her into putty no matter _how _angry she was with him. The dark stars faltered, then regained their disapproving intensity. For a woman who claimed she was timid and shy, Bernice was turning out to be one heck of a formidable woman. At least that was what General Dempsy had said after she'd run him out of sick bay like a chastised lance corporal busted down to latrine duty.

The fight they'd been watching in the boxing rink stopped, the two glove-laden gladiators from opposing gangs frozen, their eyes glued to Bernice and not each other. Every man in this gym knew Steve wasn't supposed to be out of bed.

"I tell him he no supposed to get out of bed," Rodriguez said. "But the minute the nurse go home, he ask boys to bring him downstairs."

"You're so screwed," Hak-Kun whispered, a member of the rival Azian Boyz gang.

Hak-Kun was one of the kids that came here after school instead of hanging out on the street with the gang kids. He, and around a dozen of his Azian Boyz friends, had stopped by when they'd heard Steve was finally out of the hospital. That, of course, had drawn the Dominicans, Vasco not one to let a rival gang trespass on his 'turf,' which these days had an invisible demarcation that ran right down the middle of Pankration's front door. Neutral territory. After a week of bed rest, Steve was feeling antsy. Going downstairs, where there was enough room for the kids to spread out and focus on neutral activities such as punching each other's lights out in the boxing ring, was a welcome distraction.

Not that Bernice saw it that way! She accepted his mentorship of the gang kids, but in his current physical condition he was too banged up to play referee. Teaching kids to focus their hostility into a boxing match was a skill the man he thought of as 'skinny Steve' brought to the table. But if things flared up, 'machine Steve' needed to grab the kids by the scruff of the neck and tell them to knock it off.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. One slender finger silently tapped a kind of spousal Morse code, her message clear.

"We'll help him back upstairs right away, Mrs. Rogers," Vasco called, making a gesture to the Dominicans.

There was a tense moment when the Azian Boyz did not wish to be excluded. Steve grabbed Hak-Kun under one arm, a Dominican named Tercero under the other, and allowed them to help him off the stool they'd propped in front of the boxing rink so he could alleviate his boredom by watching the kids spar. Wincing in pain the entire way up to the second floor, he groaned as he was forced to bend to sit down on the bed. Vasco signaled the others to exit the room, leaving them alone.

"You going to tell me how you _really _got so banged up?" Vasco asked.

"You know I'm not allowed to talk about that," Steve said.

Vasco was quiet.

"If you're in trouble or anything," Vasco said. "You can come to me. The Dominicans take care of their own." He shot a look at Bernice.

Bernice seemed unperturbed by Vasco's territorialism. She'd told him the gang kids had introduced themselves, but refused to discuss the matter further other than to voice support of his pet project. By the way she wasn't intimidated by having this many rival gang members piled into the gym, it seemed their interaction in his absence had been agreeable.

"I'm fine," Steve said. "Really. It was just an accident."

"You got shanked," Vasco said. "I ain't stupid. I seen what a guy looks like when they stitch him back together after getting shanked. That ain't no injury from no jeep rolling over."

"You know I'm not allowed to talk about my work," Steve said.

"You one of them spooks?" Vasco asked. "My sister's friend is married to an Army Ranger. She's over my sister's house crying every time they send him out someplace he can't talk about. He can't tell her where he goes. But we usually figure it out when something comes on the news afterward."

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it," Steve said, hating the mantra. He glanced over at Bernice, whose expression had waxed forlorn. He shot Vasco a rueful look to convey what he couldn't speak aloud. "But I sure appreciate your looking out for my gal whenever I get deployed."

Vasco picked up on his use of the word _deployed_. The fact Steve was in the Army was no secret. It gave him a legitimate excuse to disappear whenever something went down and his uncanny fighting abilities in a world where the only other people possessing such skills were criminals. People weren't stupid. If you disappeared every time something big went down on the eleven o'clock news, people put two and two together. He'd learned back in 1943 to tell people something as close to the truth as possible instead of the ludicrous lies dreamed up by the bean counters.

Vasco grunted. He looked at Bernice. "There's been some guy around the neighborhood asking about you."

Bernice blanched.

"My … friend?"

Steve's ears perked up. It appeared there _had _been more to her prior meeting with Vasco then she had let on.

Vasco shook his head no. "Someone else. Not the guy who was poking around before. Real scary looking dude."

"A private detective?" Bernice asked.

"No," Vasco said. "Got real cold eyes. Don't blink or nothing. This ain't no private dick. I told the bros to keep their mouths shut and let me know if they spot him sniffing around again."

"Thanks," Steve said. Unease shifted in his gut, made all the worse by the fact his guts were still feeling pretty scrambled.

Vasco gave him a version of the Dominican's high five and headed out the door. Bernice was silent as she helped him get off his shoes, since he couldn't bend far enough to unlace them on his own, and helped him settle back into bed. Whatever secret she and Vasco shared, she had no intention of volunteering it.

"What's this about a … friend?"

"It's nothing." She stared at the dressings she was unwinding, avoiding eye contact.

He reached up to touch her cheek.

"We shouldn't keep things from one another."

She paused, one hand reaching up to cover his. It was trembling.

"Mike hired a private detective to dig into your past."

"I heard what he said the night he showed up at your apartment," Steve said. "I asked a couple of friends on the NYPD to tell the PI to back off."

"Mike followed me here while you were gone," Bernice said. "More of the same craziness as the day he showed up at my apartment." She shrugged. "Vasco and the boys took care of it."

Steve cupped his hand under her chin and led her gaze upwards to meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect you."

"It's not your job to protect me."

Bernice focused on his bandages, yanking them off as though they contained some vile substance. Steve forced himself not to wince as she ripped off a scab.

"You're my wife. It will _always _be my job to protect you."

"Who's going to protect _you_?" Her eyes were dark and troubled.

"I have team mates," Steve said. "Natasha was an anomaly. Something happened to her. The others … we bicker. But when the rubber hits the pavement, we're there for each other."

"Like Clint?"

"Like Clint."

The troubled expression which danced across her face turned to sadness. The only reason she had gone into work today to stare at videos of Natasha was to give the man some closure. She pressed fresh gauze onto his wounds, paying special attention to one spot that was healing slower than the others. The point of worst damage that _should _have killed him, but had not. She wrapped his surgical support brace back around him and made him lay back down. Kicking off her street boots, she crawled up next to him even though it was barely four o'clock. The past two weeks had taken a lot out of the _both _of them. Her warmth as she snuggled, head on his bicep, cheek resting on his chest so she could listen to his heart beat, made him wonder how he'd ever lived _without _her at his side.

"I have an idea," she said.

"What?"

"I want to meet your alien friend."

"Nick Fury will never allow it."

"_Make _him allow it."

"Why?"

"Count Rugen knew Natasha was a shape shifter," Bernice said. "I watched video footage of his interactions with Natasha. And also the man who threw you against the wall. There was nothing to indicate they were shape shifters except the moment Natasha thickened her voice box to speak to the other alien. And yet somehow, Count Rugen knew the first time she ever walked into that room that she was one."

"She almost killed him."

"He drew you a picture of what she really was."

"Maybe he knew because she had inhuman strength," Steve said. "I wasn't able to get her off of him until Tony Stark showed up in his suit."

"Count Rugen spotted the second shape shifter right away as well," Bernice said. "And from the videos we were reviewing this afternoon, he also spotted the ones who were damaged. Like him. Rick Jones had noted in his logs several instances where PsiOps staff came in and the Count freaked out. There must be some way to communicate with him and find out how he can tell."

"I've tried," Steve said. His art skills are so primitive it's like trying to communicate with a monkey."

"I thought you said he was intelligent?"

"He can pick out his home on a star chart. But in many ways it's as though he were a child."

Bernice stiffened.

"What, honey?"

"The children," Bernice said. She propped herself up on one elbow so she could look into his eyes. "Do you think that's why they were experimenting on the children?"

"It's possible."

"Have you ever shown him the pictures?"

"He was there."

"Was he inside the cave with them?"

"No. He was in an outer corridor."

"You said there were two of them."

"Natasha killed the one who was with him first. And then she tried to kill him."

"Why?"

"We thought … at the time we thought it was just trauma. Natasha was an assassin, but she wouldn't kill a man who was down unless they were the quarry."

Bernice shivered. Steve pulled her closer. That aspect of what some of the Avengers were tasked to do did not sit well with her. He was glad _he _wasn't expected to carry out such orders. Even if the only time Clint or Natasha were sent to kill somebody is if they were a horrible threat like Osama Bin Laden.

"Why?" Bernice asked. "Why was Natasha so hell bent on killing her … minion … if he was no threat?"

"He can't communicate with us."

"Yes he can," Bernice said. "You just haven't figured it out yet."

"His vocal chords are severed."

"Not completely. When Natasha was talking to that other alien, I recognized some of the sounds. But there were more of them. It sounded familiar."

"Like what?"

"Like a modem," Bernice said. "Or when my father fools around with his ham radio equipment. It's got those changing tones."

"What's a modem?"

Bernice laughed.

"Old technology! Though not quite as old as _you!"_

"Ham radio is just a signal," Steve said. "Either you speak into it. Or you use Morse code."

"The stuff my father plays with is digital," Bernice said. "Laptop to laptop stuff. Which is what a modem is. It uses a bunch of frequencies simultaneously to send a signal. That's what it reminded me of when Natasha was talking to that other shape shifter."

"You never told me your father was a radio buff."

"I haven't really had a chance to introduce you to him properly. It's an offshoot of his work. If you ask him about it, he'll drag you down into the basement where he's got an entire room full of equipment."

Taavi Rosenthal was an electrical engineer. The one time he had met the man at Thanksgiving, he'd gone on about some volunteer work he did for SETI, which Steve had gone home and looked up afterwards as he'd had no idea what SETI was. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence. A search powered by private donations and volunteers.

"I told Doctor Banner and Mr. Stark this at the meeting this afternoon. They're going to assign people to look into it."

"They're physicists and scientists," Steve said. "Why didn't _they _pick up on it?"

"They're into cutting edge stuff," Bernice said. "Amateur radio is so far beneath them it makes them laugh."

"It's what enabled us to communicate on Tanna," Steve said. "That's how Clint got me out of there."

"Personally … I think the old stuff works better." Bernice gave him a sultry kiss. "It's simple. And it works when you really need it to work."

"Really?" Oh, god! A certain part of his anatomy was perking up with interest and he couldn't indulge the urge without splitting his sides!

"Mmm hmm." Roaming hands wandered down to what had to be the only part of his anatomy which had escaped the battle unscathed.

"Bernice … I can't…"

She broke off her kiss and began to move downward, skipping from his chest to more … urgent … parts of his body. Steve panted, wishing fervently he could do more than just lay there, vulnerable and prone. And she knew it. The little minx was getting off on being the aggressor.

"Oh … my!" The other guys had mentioned … oh … wow … but it had never occurred to him to ask her to … oh … shit … how the heck could that feel so good?

His hands tangled in her long black hair. She teased him to the edge, a wolfish grin on her face as she watched him lose control. His hips heaved upwards, a blend of pain and pleasure exploding into his brain as she granted him release. Panting as though he'd just won a marathon, even though he hadn't moved … she kissed her way back up to his mouth, his own salty essence on her lips as she nipped his lower lip.

"Now quit complaining and go to sleep," she scolded, her dark eyes filled with mischief. "If you're a good boy and don't give me no more trouble, maybe I'll reward you again later?"

After _that _run for his money, he felt so lethargic and happy that his souped up metabolism demanded sleep to accelerate his healing. She stayed curled into his side until he drifted off, some part of his subconscious monitoring where she was even after she slipped out of bed to make supper. So long as he knew she was close, he was content to be a cooperative patient.

X

_Note: Pure unadulterated mush with no redeeming quality. A little romance before the author-god does terrible things to the characters again. Get them more closely bonded before I twist the knife. Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!_

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	57. Chapter 57

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Qweb, blown-transistor, Marianne Silver, Adamantium Rose, rEdRoSeSiNaUgUsT, RipplesOfAqua, Courtney, Zekkers, Elphaba17, TheMcGracie, WantFanFics, Sinto, Arrows the Wolf, LEPrecon, **__and __**Penny Tortoishell.**_

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X

X

Chapter 57

Bernice felt as though she were Ishtar descending into the underworld as she passed through the increasing layers of security to access the bowels of the Triskelion. It was an intimidating place, made all the more intimidating by Nick Fury's glower. Access she had only gotten because Tony Stark had refused to sell the government any more energy weapons unless they kicked their sorry rear-ends out of denial and allowed the most qualified person on the planet to interrogate the alien.

Not that Bernice _felt _qualified. She wasn't qualified to do much of anything, really. She was a 23-year-old woman with a bachelor's degree in fine arts and an increasing number of Stark Industries engineering-for-dummies classes under her belt. But it had been _her _sharp eyes that had spotted the pattern to the alien behavior. And _her _sharp eyes that had spotted proof of shape-shifting on the surveillance cameras. All she could do now was hope she could piece together the weird feeling they were all missing something and figure out what that something was once she met with Steve's alien friend, Count Rugen.

An enormous man stepped in front of her. Even taller than Steve. She had spoken to him several times on the USS Gerald Ford, but it still amazed her she was speaking to _the _Thor. The one she had read about in the tales of myths and legends she had devoured as a child. Thor had been one of many fantasy characters she had sketched to fend off her sadness over her mother's death.

"Commander Rogers hath requested I accompany his beloved on her quest," Thor said, arms crossed to communicate he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. He turned to Bernice. "I am to protect thee from harm."

"Thank you, Thor," Bernice said.

His chivalrous manner always put her at ease, even if it _did _make her want to giggle. Steve had been quite unhappy she was coming without him. She clutched the digital photos she'd snapped of her and Steve together before she came, designed to communicate to Count Rugen the reason Steve had been missing was because he had been injured.

"Has Doctor Banner already arrived?" she asked.

"Doctor Banner is already down in the holding area," Nick Fury said. "As is Tony Stark. The Count has been agitated Steve hadn't visited in two weeks. His ability to communicate may be limited, but _that _much he's been able to make us understand."

"Steve is the closest thing to a friend he has," Bernice said. "Can you blame him?"

"He's an enemy combatant," Nick Fury said. "I don't _care _what he feels. Those bastards are responsible for the deaths of thousands of people."

Bernice couldn't argue with that. Her brother had found a litter of abandoned puppies once in a gully. Their father had been in the throes of grief over her mother's death when Caleb brought them home. Turned out, they weren't dogs at all, but coyote pups. No amount of training could domesticate them and more than once they'd gotten nipped. They'd finally ended up bringing them to a wildlife rehabilitation center, earning a stern lecture from the staff about attempting to domesticate wild animals. She would keep that lesson in mind as she attempted to transfer some of the trust Steve had earned to herself so she could communicate with the creature.

"What about Agent Barton?" Bernice asked.

By the twitch of Director Fury's cheek, she gathered Agent Barton wasn't going to be there today. Not that Bernice blamed him. The last thing the archer wanted was a reminder of what he'd lost.

They cleared the last level of security, Thor at her back like a solid brick wall. The others nodded greeting. She had seen video footage of the room where they kept the alien, but it still looked like something out of a science fiction movie, the enormous circular glass cage with a pit and a narrow catwalk. The Chitauri drone paced back and forth like a caged tiger, visibly frustrated as a young man she didn't recognize attempted to get it to communicate via pictures.

"This is Rick Jones," Nick Fury said. "He's Doctor Banner's research assistant. Mr. Jones … this is Bernice. Caps wife."

They shook hands. The Chitauri stopped pacing and examined her closely, it's panther-like grey face tilted to one side as though trying to figure her out.

"Did you already do what we discussed?" she asked Mr. Stark.

"You may speak freely," Mr. Stark said, glancing up at the cameras. He pulled up a small device that looked like a typical smart phone to anybody unfamiliar with Stark Industries technology. "If JARVIS gets kicked out of the system, it will trigger an alarm."

Bernice expected Director Fury to be angry, but by the slight nod of his head, it appeared he was in agreement with this tactic. The man was difficult to read. One minute he was upset he was saddled with someone who second-guessed him about Steve, the next he surprised her, backing her up on something when a bigger gun tried to step in and take over his show. Miss Potts had told her to stick to her guns and not take any of Director Fury's crap. So far, the advice had been good.

"Doctor Banner?" Bernice asked.

"We've expanded the range of sounds we're monitoring inside the cell to include sub-audible radio frequencies," Doctor Banner said.

Bernice stepped up to the door.

"I don't like this," Nick Fury said. "I am _certain _her husband has no idea what you guys had in mind or he would have never let her leave the house."

"You don't like getting blindsided, either," Mr. Stark said. "_Or _the fact we never tracked the mole back to the Pentagon. We're still compromised."

"Can he hear me?" Bernice asked.

"Hit that little button beside the door," Rick Jones said, scrambling to his feet.

Bernice pushed the button. The creature had moved to stand dead-center in the cell, watching her intently.

"Hello. My name is Bernice. Bernice Rogers. I'm Steve's wife."

She pulled out the sketches Steve had been making the last few days. She held one up to the glass.

"Do you recognize this."

_That _caused a reaction. Although no actual sound came out of the speaker, it crackled with static. The way something might crackle when there was a signal, but it was just below the level of the squelch on a ham radio. The creature paced back and forth, highly agitated as it pointed to the picture.

"I need you to open the door," Bernice said.

"Are you _nuts?"_ Director Fury said. "Look at him? He'll snap your neck."

Bernice slid a picture out of her portfolio, hastily printed out on a color printer only moments before she'd come here today. Her and Steve. His arm thrown around her. She'd taken off his brace before she'd snapped the picture so the two jagged scars were clearly visible. Bernice held the picture up to the glass. Count Rugen stopped pacing and stepped up to the other side.

"He's my husband," Bernice said. She pointed to the scars on his abdomen. "He got hurt real bad." She pulled out the second picture and put it next to it. "By one of these." She pulled out a third picture. The picture of Natasha standing in front of the second shape shifter. "It was disguised as Agent Romanov. She's dead now."

The creature touched the glass, tracing the picture of Steve. Its strange grey eyes filled with sadness. It stepped over to where Rick Jones had slipped paper and pencils into the feeding slot earlier and sat down on the floor cross-legged. It took a minute, but the creature drew a crude picture of what appeared to be a slug with lots of claws sticking out. It pointed to its picture, and then to the one drawn by Steve.

"Yes," Bernice said. "It's dead now." She made a move as though pretending to rip the picture in half, throw it on the ground, and then stomp on it. The static on the door speaker increased, only a tiny bit of the noise audible above the static.

"Are you getting all this?" Doctor Banner asked Tony Stark.

"I'll be damned," Mr. Stark said. "She's right. Now I've seen everything."

"What are you two talking about," Nick Fury asked.

"The thing speaks on multiple frequencies at once," Mr. Stark said. "Nearly all of them beyond the threshold of human hearing.

"I thought you geniuses were monitoring it for sounds?" Nick Fury asked.

"We were," Rick Jones said. He pointed to one of the frequencies showing on a line graph that showed multiple frequencies at once. "We've been monitoring the ones we could hear. But it didn't make sense."

"Does it make sense now?" Nick Fury asked.

"JARVIS?" Mr. Stark asked.

"Doctor Banner's assessment of the creature was correct, Mr. Stark," JARVIS said. "Its vocal chords are damaged. When I analyze the sound waves, I detect a gap in where I suspect it would vocalize if it could."

"So we're back at square one?" Director Fury asked.

"Not necessarily," Bernice said. She looked at the creature, which was pointing to Steve's chest and trying to communicate. She didn't need to understand its language to understand what it was trying to say.

"Let me into the cage."

Thor stepped up to her back. "I believest that be not a good idea."

"Steve said I can trust you guys to have my back," she said.

Thor nodded.

"Let her in," Mr. Stark said. "If the grey guy acts up, we'll sick the big green guy on him."

"The cure might be worse than the disease," Doctor Banner said, looking uncomfortable.

"All right," Fury said. He nodded to Rick Jones. Rick stuck a key card into the cage while Mr. Stark and Thor moved to stand on either side of her. Just in case.

Her heart racing, the door opened. The alien seemed to understand her discomfort and backed up to its bench, which had neither pillow nor blanket to give it comfort. It was hot in here. The creature sat exactly the way Steve had described, hands on its knees, palms up, to convey it meant no threat. Bernice stepped up to it and pulled out her smart phone. The creature immediately perked up. It appeared to be technology it was marginally familiar with.

She dialed home. It was Skype hooked up to the webcam on her laptop she'd left set up, not Steve's cell phone. Steve's face came onto the screen.

"Hi, honey," Bernice said. "An old friend wants to talk to you."

"I think I've got this thing … oops … wait a minute … scratch that … never mind no problem. Hey." The picture jerked around a few times, then grew steady as he figured out how to work the microphone.

She handed the smart phone to Count Rugen.

"Bernice … are you in the _cage_ with him?"

Count Rugen held the picture in front of his face and began to make the strange, low noises. The ones you could feel in your bones, but not hear.

"Oh … hey buddy. You're not going to hurt my girl, I hope?"

The creature pointed to the photograph Bernice had printed out earlier. The one of her and Steve standing together, his arms thrown around her in a universal male gesture of 'my girl.'

"Yeah … she's my girl."

Count Rugen pointed to the gash in the picture.

Steve moved the camera down to show he was all bandaged up, then back up to his face.

"You tried to warn me, buddy," Steve said. "I wish I'd listened to you. The trip to Valhalla was something I could have done without."

Behind her, Thor tensed. Steve hadn't told the others that he'd either been hallucinating, or really had crossed over into the great unknown for a few minutes before coming back. But he'd told _her_. She was convinced when he'd described her grandmother that what he'd seen had been real.

The creature jerked its head up and down as though it understood some of what Steve was saying. Was it beginning to learn their language?

The two conversed for a few more minutes before Bernice took away the phone. The creature sat, subdued and quiet, in the passive position while Steve chastised her for going inside the cage before telling her he loved her and ending the call. Just as they had planned. At least the part about the call. She'd told Steve she was going to pass the phone through the food portal. Not go inside the cage.

"Come," she said, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. She spread out papers, pastels and colored pencils on the floor in front of her. "We're going to try to see what we can do about breaking down this language barrier we seem to be experiencing."

For the next several hours, they drew pictures while she encouraged the creature to speak, what little it could, about whatever it was drawing. Its artwork didn't really improve, but after the fourth hour, JARVIS announced he had collected enough data to begin to discern a pattern.

Bidding Count Rugen goodbye, Bernice gathered her things and left the picture of her and Steve for it. She understood why they kept the creature caged, but she hoped they'd eventually figure out a way to keep it someplace less unpleasant. The creature sat quietly back down on its bench, its expression forlorn as the other Avengers herded her out the door into Tony Stark's waiting Audi.

"Steve's driving me crazy," Bernice said. "Why don't you guys come back with me and get a bite to eat?"

Doctor Banner, Mr. Stark, and Thor elbowed one another. It struck her how much the three reminded her of the three stooges.

"Only if we can get takeout," Mr. Stark said. "My treat."

The other two guffawed. Bernice had _no _idea what that was all about. She wasn't a great cook, but it wasn't like she was _terrible_.

Jammed into a sports car with three of Earth's mightiest superheroes, they piled out like clowns at a circus after Mr. Stark illegally parked in front of Pankration. The three sauntered into the front door, slapping each other on the back and cracking dirty jokes the entire way, and immediately started ribbing Steve about just about every subject under the sun. Bromance. Now if only Agent Barton could get settled into the increasingly tight-knit group, it would put Bernice more at ease the next time Steve got sent out on a mission.

She glanced across the street into the eyes of a pedestrian. A clean-cut man in a nice suit standing across the street. A chill went down her spine. The man picked something up off the sidewalk and continued on his way. The uneasy feeling sat in her gut as she went inside and joined her husband and his friends.

X

_Note: I've been itching to have Bernice meet Count Rugen. And also a bit of Avengers male-bonding now that Herr Kleiser/ImpostaNasha is no longer splitting everybody up. Leave a review if you have time! It makes my day._

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	58. Chapter 58

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Qwebs, Arrows the Wolf, Adamantium Rose, Cotton Strings, Marianne Silver, Mystewitch, blown-transistor, RipplesOfAqua, Neko Tiger, LEPrecon, Afternoon on a hill, Courtney, **__and __**Penny Tortoiseshell.**_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 58

"So they're like dolphins?" Huojin asked.

"Or bats," Ralph said.

"We've documented sub-audible vocalizations on 52, 35 and 25 hertz," Doctor Banner said. "As well as 150 and 250 mega-hertz. The creature is like a bat, a dolphin, and a humpback whale all rolled into one."

"Can he echolocate?" Doctor Nyi asked.

"We don't know," Doctor Banner said. "Maybe. It would explain why we found no signs of radio equipment on the gliders."

"What's the range?" Charlie asked, another engineer. "Dolphins and whales can communicate great distances."

"We're not sure," Doctor Nyi said. "The creature would have the same limitations as other living creatures. He can only create as much sound as his lungs and vocal chords are capable of generating."

"How far can a whale talk to another whale?" another asked.

"The highest documented distance we have is a thousand miles away," Doctor Banner said.

"So what you're saying is these guys don't _need _a radio transceiver to get a signal from the mother ship?" Huojin asked.

"We can block the signal!" Ralph said excitedly.

"That's what we're hoping for," Doctor Nyi said. "The good doctor will track the physiology of our alien friend, while it's up to _us _to engineer something that works."

"Which is why I've recruited an … um … expert," Doctor Banner said. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce one of my colleagues from … um … let's just say Mr. Murdock is an expert on echolocation."

A tall, dark, and very handsome man walked into the room wearing sunglasses. Sunglasses? Down here? Mr. Murdock walked towards where Doctor Banner and Doctor Nyi stood in front of the enormous smart board where they had diagrams scribbled across the screen. The man paused in front of laptop case that had been carelessly left on the floor and stepped around it in a strange dance. He moved to stand between the others and introduced himself.

"Loud noise can impact a creature that uses echolocation to either supplement or replace poor vision," Mr. Murdock said. His face was strangely blank as he faced the large group of engineers jammed into the conference room. "We need to figure out which noises interrupt their ability to communicate or broadcast whatever the kill command is that caused them all to drop dead after the New York attack."

"Or hijack it to emit false instructions," Bernice added.

Everybody turned and stared at her.

"I mean …. why kill them if we don't have to?"

"They're monsters," several engineers said simultaneously.

"They're sentient creatures," Bernice said.

"They're drones," Ralph said.

"_We're _drones," Bernice said. She turned to the others. "Think about it. What do we do for work. We sit in a basement all day long and solve problems. The only difference is we _choose _to do it. These guys don't have a choice."

"Bullshit," Charlie said. "Both of my parents were killed in the attack. Nobody put a gun to their heads and made them kill innocent civilians."

"He's right," several engineers chipped in.

Bernice knew a losing argument when she saw it. She took a play straight out of the 'Skinny Steve Playbook of Playing Nicely Together.'

"It's a drone army," Bernice said. "What if you could seize control of that army for yourself and turn it against its master? Like a … I don't know. A dominating blow. Like the video game Path of Exile. You can seize control of your enemy's fighters for a short period of time."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Not necessarily," Ralph said. "They're drones, right? They follow a command signal we haven't figured out yet."

"And we know it's not voluntary by the way they try to save themselves if they can break free of the command," Huojin said. "If the aliens can control their own drones, why couldn't we?"

"We'd need to figure out their language, first," Doctor Nyi said. "But yes … it may be possible."

"I can't believe we're talking using video game technology to dispatch a real army," Kenneth Greenhalgh complained, the biggest ass-wipe in the Advanced Weapons Engineering department. "With an artist, of all things. She's not even an engineer."

He shot Bernice a contemptuous look. The man had been pissy ever since Bernice's team had kicked _his _student's team butts in the cream pie flinging contest at the end-of-year cookout using medieval trebuchets. _That _seasons engineering-for-dummies project. They were up for a 'dummies 102' rematch at the upcoming company Christmas party with a Chinese water torture project.

"Mr. Murdock," Doctor Banner said. "You're the expert. What do _you _think?"

Mr. Murdock's head jerked to one side, to the exact position where Doctor Banner spoke.

"I know nothing of playing video games," Mr. Murdock said. "But I know everything about blocking a Doppler signal on a living creature who uses echolocation to get around."

Mr. Murdock pulled off his sunglasses. White eyes with no irises stared out across the group of engineers. Blind? Mr. Murdock was blind? But how had he…

"Mr. Murdock has unusually sensitive hearing," Doctor Banner said. "We won't go into the logistics as that information is above most of your pay grade. He usually refuses to … work … with groups who seek to put his gift to military use."

"But in light of the fact a Leviathan crash-landed in Hell's Kitchen and killed some of my friends," Mr. Murdock said. "I'm making an exception. I can hear that portion of the alien signal that transmits in the 25 hertz and the 150 megahertz ranges. Whatever downed the alien drones after Mr. Stark blew up the mothership left me with a brain-splitting headache. It's not much. But it's something to start on."

The engineers quickly left that realm of brainstorming where they were using analogies Bernice could understand and moved into geek-speak. Speech so technological that no mortal lacking wires stuck out of their skull could comprehend it. Wireheads. Geeks. Dweebs. It occurred to her that her father would probably feel right at home with this conversation. When he'd tried to describe his SETI hobby, it had been like anesthesia. Promptly making her seek the nearest exit so she didn't fall asleep. Now she wished she'd paid more attention.

Her cell phone buzzed a text message. Steve? No. Jacquie. An invitation to meet for lunch. At last. Jacquie had been giving her the cold shoulder, refusing to answer her telephone calls or text messages. She could understand why Jacquie was pissed off. She'd gotten married before telling her best friend … then disappeared for almost a week without calling to tell her she was caring for an injured husband. Worse, because Jacquie didn't have a security clearance, she wasn't free to discuss any of the details with her.

She desperately wanted to mend her bridges with her best friend. Jacquie had always been there when she needed her. It was almost lunchtime now. She excused herself from the dull conversation, which no longer pertained to any skill she possessed, and rummaged in her bag for the bridal magazines she'd picked up while Steve was at Walter Reid. He wanted her to plan a big white wedding, with all of her family and friends. Personally, after the tepid reception her family had given her and her inability to explain exactly what her husband _did _for work, she was thinking of something small and intimate. But whatever they did, there was one thing she insisted upon. She wanted _Jacquie _to be her maid-of-honor. And she hoped to ask her today.

She bumped into Kenneth Greenhalgh on her way out the door. The nicest looking … and biggest ass … in the entire group. He gave her a scowl.

"You think you can just come in here and drop your crazy ideas," Kenneth asked. "And then bail when it's time to roll up your sleeves and do some actual _work_?"

"It's lunchtime," Bernice said. "I'm entitled to eat lunch."

"What do you actually _-do- _around here?" Kenneth asked. "I mean … you're not an engineer. You don't add anything to the conversation. You can't do a math problem to save your life. Half the time you don't even bother showing up!"

"I … uh," Bernice stammered. She glanced behind him, hoping to see some reason to excuse herself.

"Are you banging Tony Stark?" Kenneth asked.

"Wh-what?" Bernice asked.

"That's what everyone is saying behind your back, you know," Kenneth sneered. "I mean … why the hell do _you _get access to him all the time? It's not like you actually _know _anything."

Bernice flushed purple with anger.

"Mr. _Stark,_" she hissed. "Asks me to document his ideas because, unlike _you, _I have no preconceived _notions _of what things should and should not look like. Unlike _some _people in the group. Who only care about their _own _theories and not those of other people!"

"Yeah … right," Kenneth snorted. "And where are you off to now? To meet the Iron Man for lunch?"

"Ah-ha-hah-hum," somebody coughed. Tony Stark stepped out of the men's room from directly behind Kenneth, straightening his blazer. He gave Bernice one of his devil-may-care grins. The one she knew masked a biting wit. Bernice smirked as Kenneth ignored whoever was behind him and continued his rant.

"That's the only reason you were hired, wasn't it?" Kenneth said. "I've been around here long enough to remember when Mr. Stark chased every skirt in the company. Do you think any of us believe for one minute he isn't still doing it behind Pepper's back?"

By the twitch of Mr. Stark's cheek, she knew Kenneth was about to get it with both barrels.

"If you'll excuse me," Bernice said to Kenneth, giving him her sweetest smile. "I have a wedding to plan. Mr. Stark! Good to see you again!"

She caught the horrified expression on Kenneth's face before she made her escape, suppressing her laugh behind long enough to pass through the next security checkpoint. The security guard gave her a perplexed look when she burst out laughing. In a good mood, she made her way into the subway to hop several blocks to the falaffal place Jacquie had recommended halfway between Stark Towers and the architectural firm she worked for.

Eleven thirty. Not quite lunch yet in Midtown. The restaurant was practically empty. The lighting was muted and soft, the wailing ululations of a middle-eastern shawm, an oboe-like instrument, giving an exotic flair to the place. A pair of patrons sat on one table, Jacquie in the far corner, her back ramrod straight. The decadent aroma of baked kibbi, tas kebab, and schwarma made her mouth water. An exotically dressed waitress in a saffron-colored abaya dress and matching hijab waited tables while, in the rear, a man who could only be the owner, rushed forward to seat her.

"I'm here to meet my friend," Bernice said.

The owner escorted her to the table, welcoming her and stating pleasantries. Bernice slid into the seat opposite Jacquie, grabbing the menu handed to her by the owner. Jacquie looked…

"Why are you wearing sunglasses?" Bernice asked. "It's really dark in here."

"I've got a headache," Jacquie said, her expression devoid of emotion.

Bernice's heart sank down to her stomach. So. Jacquie _was _still angry with her. She shouldn't be surprised. Although it _felt _as though ten years had passed since that fateful night she'd stood on the Statue of Liberty and watched Steve nearly get killed, the fact was, it had barely been two weeks and a half weeks. In that time, she'd learned Steve loved her, gotten married, and been whisked away to the South Pacific to nurse her husband back from the dead. Jacquie's everyday concerns had seemed … mundane … when she'd finally gotten hold of her and told her why she hadn't called. Had Bernice _really _been that much of an ass to her best friend?

She took one look at Jacquie's cold expression. Yes. She had. Jacquie was most likely wearing sunglasses because she'd made her cry.

"I'm really sorry." Bernice reached across the table to take Jacquie's hand. "I'm sorry I've been such an inconsiderate jerk lately. It's just … oh god! I wish I could tell you what the heck's been going on so we could … I don't know! Talk?"

"Then why don't you?" Jacquie's voice was emotionless and flat. "Tell me what's been going on."

"I can't," Bernice said. Jacquie pulled her hand away. "I'm really sorry, but you know I just can't. It's classified."

"This is all Steve Rogers fault," Jacquie said. "The man appears out of nowhere and you're off chasing after him."

"You saw for yourself who he really is," Bernice whispered. "You _know _why I can't talk about it."

The waitress came over and set a tray of flat bread and various spreads on the table. They gave orders for something quick as Bernice couldn't spare more than an hour away from the lab. Whether or not she had something constructive to add to the conversation, the fact was she was getting _paid _to be there. If nothing else, she could doodle concept sketches of ideas the engineers threw out in case it sparked an idea later.

"Falaffal balls," Bernice said.

"Schwarma," Jacquie said.

Bernice pulled out the wedding magazines she'd purchased earlier.

"Listen," Bernice said. "I know everything happened really quick. Steve … he's old fashioned. He's not the kind of guy to … you know … without getting married. But we want to have a _real _wedding ceremony. And we both want _you _to be the maid of honor."

Jacquie was silent.

"Please, Jacquie," Bernice pleaded. "You're my best friend. I can't do this without you."

Jacquie snorted. The waitress came back out with their sandwiches. They were silent until the waitress left.

"You should have thought of that before you sold out to SHIELD," Jacquie said.

"I didn't sell out to … hey, wait a minute. How do you know about SHIELD? I never mentioned anything about SHIELD."

"Not exciting enough for you?" Jacquie said, her red and black streaked hair giving her anger a menacing air. "You have to sell out to an organization that would deprive this planet of its rightful leadership?"

"Rightful … leadership?"

The Middle Eastern music had grown oppressively loud. Bernice glanced towards the entrance and noticed the restaurant owner had flipped over the sign from 'open' to 'closed.' The waitress had disappeared.

"What's going on here, Jacquie?"

The two men who'd been the only other patrons in the place stood up and walked over, tall and menacing in their black designer suits. Both wore sunglasses as well. Jacquie took off her glasses. Beside her dark Asiatic eyes was a scab from some sort of wound.

"Jacquie?"

She looked to the two tall men and recognized one of them, also wearing sunglasses.

"Mike?"

Mike did not answer, but when he took off his glasses, he had the _same _exact scar as Jacquie had.

"Miss Rosenthal," the taller of the two men said. His voice bore the faint trace of an Irish brogue. "At last, I get to meet the woman who seduced the missing link."

Bernice tried to get out of her chair and was forced back into her seat by Mike. She squirmed, trying to get away.

"Who are you?"

"You tell me?"

He slipped off his glasses. Bernice stared into a face that was so familiar, were it not for the fact the jaw was squarer, the hair just a bit darker, the ice blue eyes so totally devoid of warmth, she would have sworn she were staring into the face of her husband. It was a face she had seen once in a faded black-and-white photograph.

"Impossible," she said.

The man's hands changed shape. A long, thin protrusion came out of his index finger. Shape shifter! Mike clapped a hand over her mouth and restrained her as the slender, snake-like protrusion headed straight for her eye. She fought her way free.

"Jacquie! Help!" she screamed.

Jacquie did not move. No emotion registered in her face at all. It was as though she were not even here. The ululating Middle Eastern wailed so loud it drowned out her screams.

The protrusion burrowed into her eye-socket, worming its way in past her eyeball into the soft flesh, and rammed its way into her brain. Mike's hand clapped over her mouth. Fire burned through her brain, and then it turned cold. Sleep. Her body twitching as though she'd just been electrocuted, the room grew dark.

X

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	59. Chapter 59

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Chapter 59

"Cook the hamburger meat until it's lightly brown. Add two cups hot water and a half-cup of milk. Add noodles and contents of flavor packet. Cover and simmer 15 minutes until sauce thickens."

Steve stared at the pot simmering on the stove. _One _of them had to cook supper. Between the two of them, perhaps they could pool their talents and come up with _one _good cook. He smiled. Who would have pegged him as a house-husband? Or at least as domestic as a hungry guy got who was running out of excuses to order takeout when the woman he worshipped _insisted _on cooking for him. He laughed and immediately regretted it. Ouch! He supposed he should be grateful he was healing, but darn! At least he'd like to _laugh _and not be doubled over in pain.

He glanced at the text message she'd sent earlier this afternoon.

_'Met Jacquie for lunch. Going shopping after work. Be home late. Love … B.'_

By shopping, he hoped she meant shopping for a wedding dress. They'd discussed having a _proper_ reception so she could invite her family. But ever since he'd been injured, she'd been reluctant to discuss it. Her family had given a tepid response to their sudden marriage and her best friend had been hurt she hadn't called her first. Steve understood. These were different times than the ones he'd grown up in. But after Bernice had balked at having any kind of reception at all, he'd urged her to touch base with her best friend. Jacquie, he was certain, would talk her into making their marriage public with at least _some _type of family gathering. How could he win the trust of her family and friends, especially given how tight-lipped he needed to be about everything _else _about himself except for the fact he worshipped the ground she walked upon, unless they had a chance to get to know him?

His phone buzzed. Bernice? Yes. _'Hung up at the store. Be home as soon as I can. Love … B.'_

Shopping! At least _that _much hadn't changed in the 67 years he'd been asleep. He was glad Bernice and Jacquie were mending their bridges. If she was going to weather his deployments, then she needed shoulders to lean upon for support. _Lots _of shoulders if he got banged up again the way he'd gotten banged up the past few weeks. For three years he'd crisscrossed Europe, leading raids against Red Skulls forces. He'd gotten more banged up the past three _weeks _than he had the entire _three years _he'd fought in World War II!

Rodriguez stuck his head in the door and wished him goodnight. It was after eight o'clock? Most stores were now closed. Steve glanced at his watch. Crime had decreased in this neighborhood since the Dominicans and the Azian Boyz had declared a truce. They now patrolled it for unwanted third parties instead of each other … for the most part … but it was still a long stretch from safe. He set the table and waited, debating whether to walk down to the subway station to meet her or stay here?

He pulled out his cell phone, painstakingly punching letters onto the tiny keypad with his too-large fingers. He hit the 'send' button.

_'Where are you? Worried. Love … S.'_

He waited.

_'Sorry. Bought too much stuff. Took a cab. Dropping Jacquie off first. Love … B.'_

Whew! A cab. They'd drop her right off at the front door. Neutral territory patrolled by _both _rival gangs, both who'd promised they'd watch out for her whenever he was away. Heaven help the poor slob who messed with his girl in their front yard!

His stomach growled. With a metabolism as fast as _his _came an ungodly appetite. It had been Hawkeye who'd introduced him to the decadent pleasure of Hamburger Helper. _Real _chef's turned their noses up at the boxed supper. But it had everything a hungry guy wanted. Meat. Starch. And Gravy. He needed to cook four of them, of course, just for himself. But all he had to do was open a can of peas and corn, amazingly tasty compared to the tasteless versions available in 1945, and he had a complete meal. Fool proof. Even for a guy. He'd made a small foray out to the neighborhood florist this afternoon to pick up some flowers. He arranged them a second time, then sat down to pick at the congealing supper.

At eight-thirty, he started to pace. At eight forty-five, he tried calling her several more times and sent another text message. No answer. At nine o'clock he called her old apartment, hoping Jacquie would pick up. No answer. Where were they? At nine twenty-two, he heard a commotion from the gym below.

At last! He leaped up, wincing as he grabbed his side, and made his way down the stairs. It was coming from the garage attached to the back of the gym? That was peculiar. Oh! Maybe she was trying to sneak in the back door and hide a certain white dress the groom wasn't supposed to see? He grinned. _That _was what had taken her so long!

"Bernice?"

He called her name and made plenty of noise, alerting her he was on his way. Just in case she wanted him to stay out until she hid a certain white package? No answer. The sound of tools rustling around in the garage and a garbage lid clattering on the concrete met his ears.

"Bernice?" Steve shouted. "Is it okay to come in? Or are you trying to hide something?"

No answer? He paused at the door, frowning. Goose bumps rose on his arms.

"Steve … it's just me." Her voice sounded muffled and odd.

"Can I come in?"

"Hold on a minute."

She sounded out of breath. From marathon shopping? Or lugging in too many packages. More rustles from inside the garage, as though somebody were rummaging through things looking for a hiding spot. He waited with his hand on the door knob.

"Okay, you can come in now."

"You had me worr…. Umpf!"

A tire iron crashed down upon his head. Stars exploded inside his brain. He staggered back into the gym from which he'd come. Bernice? He was driven back as the figure stepped forward and struck at him again. Years of reflexes kicked in, his arm automatically rising above his head in a block. Pain shattered through his forearm as it took the brunt of the swing, sparing his head a second blow. An intruder? He staggered, the unexpected blow to the head leaving him struggling to remain conscious and confused. His assailant was dressed in black, a ski mask over his face so he couldn't tell who it was.

"Bernice!" he shouted into the garage. "Where are you? Are you okay?"

Ski-mask clad men rushed in from the alley behind the gym wielding tire irons, baseball bats, and batons. They poured through the open garage door like medieval berserkers, a mindless, soulless hoard intent on only one thing. Kill _him_. He kicked and punched, ducking to avoid blows to his head but was unable to avoid his hands and less vulnerable parts of his body taking blows. It felt like his gut was going to burst open, the scar too newly healed and muscles not yet fully knit together to be in top physical form. He was outnumbered … and unarmed. They drove him backwards into the gym, clubbing at him from every direction. He shouted her name again and again. Bernice! Where was she?

The berserkers did not speak…

It was a ruse. A ruse to get close when his guard was down. Certain she was not there to be caught in the crossfire, he shook off his denial and sprang into the offensive, years of training forcing his mind to ignore his own pain and fight. The assailants clobbered at him from all sides with sticks and clubs, twenty-two, maybe twenty-four of them. A gang? Which one? They wore no gang insignia or colors on their black-clad forms, but they moved in unison the way a gang would move. Which one was the leader?

They had weapons and he didn't. His arms were inadequate to fend off their blows. The increased reach afforded by their weapons made it hard for him to get in a kick without earning a tire iron in the skull in response. He needed to get creative. He threw himself to the floor in a quasi-cartwheel, but instead of swinging his legs straight up he swung them around his body in the flip-kicks of Brazilian capoeira. It was a move he'd added to his traditional self-defense routine after a few of the gang kids had caught him off-guard with it a few times, the unpredictable break-dancer-like moves protecting his face and allowing him to land kicks into his assailant's guts. He knocked them backward before they could land their blows, the assailants apparently unfamiliar with such a peculiar self-defense routine. He spied an iron weight bar left hanging on a bench press, the weights removed as Rodriguez left them every night. Grunting in pain, he leaped between two baton-wielding assailants into a karate roll and grabbed the bar on his way up.

Now he was no longer defenseless…

Wielding the heavy bar like a baseball bat, he swung at the men who'd invaded his gym, the sickening crunch of bone beneath the weight of the iron greeting his ears. It was too easy. Whoever these men were, although they coordinated their movements well to encircle and harass, they were not trained fighters. If had they'd wanted him dead, they would have come at him with guns and knives, not blunt instruments. What the heck was going on here?

He began to hold his punches, striking at whoever came at him as they circled around him like a pack of hungry jackals, waiting for the prey to stumble, but no single man moved in for the kill. Their purpose became obvious when several of the men fanned out, dumping gasoline all over the gymnasium floor. With a whoosh, flames erupted up the stairwell to the second floor. The fire had been set deliberately. Where the updraft, fueled by the open garage door, would carry the flames fastest to the upper floors.

"Who are you?" he shouted.

The slender black-garbed figure who had at first impersonated Bernice stepped forward, the others stepping aside to let him pass.

"We were sent to give you a message, man out of time," the woman spoke. Not Bernice! Without the door between them to muffle her speech, he was certain it was not her.

"What message?"

Around him, the fires began to rage, old varnished wood catching fire like kindling. The woman swayed, as though momentarily confused. She took her time answering him, as though biding time to be certain the building was fully engulfed in flames.

"You have destroyed our home and killed our agent," the woman said. "Now the Other shall destroy _your _home. He has returned to take what is rightfully ours."

Bernice! He felt as though the woman had ripped out his heart at her awful words. Fire began to creep along the ceiling, igniting everything in its path. The woman stepped back, the assailants closing around the opening they had created for her. Human drones! They struck at him with single-minded fury, not caring that they were all about to be burned alive. Dammit! Flames dropped from the ceiling. Why didn't they run?

Flames dripped onto the floor. The petroleum-laden foam inside the mats ignited like hellfire, choking the room with black smoke. Several of the drones caught fire, yet kept right on clubbing at him, oblivious to their impending death. One man, however, screamed and started whacking at himself. The others immediately converged upon the man and struck him down. Steve coughed, unable to breathe … or get past them no matter _how _many times he struck at them. Why the hell didn't they move in for the kill so he could take them instead of dancing back out of his reach, or save themselves? He heard a commotion from the front door. Glass smashed. That was it. He was done for. There was no escaping past this many men.

"Steve!" A voice shouted from the front of the building.

Brown faces peered into through the shattered window, gang tattoos and colorful coats marking their affiliation and rank. The black-clad drones seemed clueless that they were about to be eaten alive by the Dominicans and the Azian Boyz, come together in a rare joint-rumble. Gang kids poured in through the shattered windows, their shoes crunching on broken glass as they came in wielding switchblades and Billy clubs. They moved around the assailants like a pack of wolves, working together to pick off the black-attired drones. It was as though the drones didn't even realize they were being attacked from the rear, so single-minded was their focus on _him, _their quarry. One by one they began to fall, not even an expletive uttered as they were clubbed over the head or tripped and knocked unconscious.

The stamped tin ceiling tiles began to pop under the heat and drop to the floor, raining fire along with it. Beneath the ceiling lay bare wood. It exploded with flames, sparks raining down everywhere. The smoke was so thick, Steve couldn't even see.

"Vasco!" Steve coughed. "Get the hell out of here."

"I ain't leaving you man!" Vasco shouted. For good measure, he clobbered one of the assailants over the head. The man crumbled to the floor without complaint. Vasco bent and pulled off the man's mask. The drone was little more than a kid!

"Drag them out of here," Steve shouted. "Now."

"Fuck 'em!" Vasco shouted. For good measure, he stabbed at the last assailant standing and looked surprised when the man crumbled to the ground as though he'd been shanked. Vasco had only stabbed him in the hand. Not in any vital organs.

Fire fell onto them, singing Steve's hair. Sparks had begun to burn through his shirt. If he didn't get the gang kids out of here, there was going to be a lot more dead tonight than just him!

"They're just kids," Steve shouted. " Vasco! Please! You want to know what I do for work? I'll tell you. Just for god's sake … get your guys out of here before we all die!"

Vasco whistled, the sound barely audible above the roar of the flames. He made a hand signal that meant 'retreat.' He pointed to the guys laying on the floor. One by one, the Dominicans and Azian Boyz grabbed the unconscious assailants and none-too-gently dragged them towards the shattered windows, not very mindful to make sure the bad guys weren't sliced by broken glass on their way out. One by one, bodies were lifted over the windowsill and dumped outside. Steve picked a couple of the drones up and ran back and forth to the window, dodging falling debris and checking the floor to make sure everyone had gotten out.

His notebooks! He glanced up the stairwell, where everything he had left from his past was catching fire. His notebooks. The scrapbooks of friends long dead and in the grave. His parents. The map! Oh god, the map! The invasion map he'd drawn for Peggy was still upstairs. The map they'd photocopied and given to the others was not complete! Not by a long shot. Not sure who to trust, they'd made a copy then whited out the parts they didn't want to tip off the mole at the Pentagon he knew might potentially be a base. He'd only given SHIELD the copy with bases he was certain were already blown. The Chitauri invasion plan was going up in flames!

"I'll be right back!" he shouted at Vasco.

"Steve!" Vasco shouted. "Don't do it man! You'll die!"

"I have to do this," Steve said. "You have no idea what's at stake."

Grabbing a bandana from one of the Azian Boyz, he covered his mouth and nose to keep out the acrid smoke and ran inside. He ran towards the stairwell, holding his side. The bang to his had was making him dizzy and it felt like his guts were about to fall out of his stomach! He made it as far as the bottom step when he glanced back towards the garage door. A single figure stood, surrounded by flames. They'd left one behind.

"Help me!" she shouted. The masked woman who'd given him the message from this Other. It was no longer the cold, emotionless voice which had spoken earlier, but the voice of a terrified girl. Flames rose up around her, obscuring her from view.

He looked up the stairs. All that was left of who he had been was up there. There was no replacing what little he had left of his past.

Flames fell onto the woman's head, igniting her hat. She screamed and ripped it off. Like a flaming tiger, what he was seeing registered upon his brain. Red. And black. Striped. Hair. Hair he had seen exactly once. In Bernice's old apartment. The roof began to cave in, right on top of her, engulfing her in flames. The woman screamed and fell to the floor, covered by burning debris.

"Jacquie!" he shouted.

His past forgotten, he rushed to save his wife's best friend. Flames licked at him like a hungry lion. He shouted in pain, ignoring the fire as threw the flaming woman over his shoulder. He couldn't see! The gang kids screamed at him to get the hell out of there, their voices giving him direction in the blinding smoke. He followed their voices, thankful they had been there to come to his aid. He glanced back at the stairwell, just in time to see the stair above it fall into the hole. Had he gone that way, he'd be dead right now. Leaping out the window just as the floor above collapsed into the gym, he rolled on the ground, dropping the flaming woman hard upon the concrete. One of the gang kids came up with his coat and began beat it on his back, putting out the tee shirt which had caught fire. Another rolled the unconscious girl, putting out the fire on her coat. Sirens wailed in the distance, red and blue lights racing towards through the city streets.

Steve looked with dismay at the gym. His foothold in this place in time. Everything he had tried to build that was _his. _Gone. All gone. Just like that they'd taken everything from him. Including Bernice.

Fire engines screeched to a halt. Men ran out with hoses and fire axes and began to plug into fire hydrants, turning the hoses upon the flaming gym, trying to get the raging inferno under control before it ignited the surrounding buildings.

"Anyone still inside, Sir?" one of the firemen asked.

"I don't know," Steve said, his sides heaving as he coughed up soot. "Everyone who was _supposed _to be there got out. But … the fire was set by arsonists. There might still be intruders inside."

"Hey … what are you doing?" one of the policemen shouted.

The gang kids kicked at the black-dressed assailants, ripping off masks and trying to shake them awake. None of the drones moved. A paramedic kneeled and took their pulse.

"They're dead."

Two other paramedics descended upon the assailants and, one by one, felt their pulses. Dead. All dead? Smoke inhalation?

"What the hell did you _do _to these guys?" the fireman shouted. The police moved from crowd control to surround the gang kids, the safety straps unclipped from their gun cases as they tried to decide whether to arrest them, or herd them towards the ambulances for medical attention.

"We ain't done nothing, man!" Vasco shouted. The gang kids moved around him like wolves moving in to protect their alpha. Even the Azian Boyz moved in as one. These kids were used to being on the wrong side of the police. The police drew their guns.

Steve stepped between the gang kids and the police. The police assumed it had been the gang kids to set the gym on fire and kill all of the assailants. Not the after-effects of the fire.

"The guys on the ground broke into my gym." Steve held out his hands, palms up, to show he meant no harm. "These guys work out here. They came to help us get out."

"They're all _dead!"_ the paramedics shouted.

"I told you," Vasco shouted. "We ain't done nothing! Why you always blaming us for shit that ain't our fault?"

The gang kids crouched, ready to attack, switchblades against guns.

The sound of safety's being clicked off police issued 9 mm semi-automatic handguns.

"I'm Steve Rogers," Steve shouted. "Please! I own this building! These kids were only trying to help!"

"Who the hell are _you?" _a policeman shouted who appeared to be in charge. By the bars on his uniform, the sergeant.

Steve rose up to his full height.

"Call General Dempsey at the Pentagon and tell him you're holding Steve Rogers at gunpoint," Steve said. "See what he says."

"You're nuts," the sergeant said. "Next you'll tell me to call President Obama!"

There was a commotion at the back of the group of policemen.

"Let me pass!" a voice shouted. "Steve! Steve! Is that you?"

Steve breathed a sigh of relief. It was a gym patron he sparred with almost every single morning.

"Jack!"

"What happened here, man?" Jack asked. He was wearing his detective clothing, not a regular uniform. But his golden shield gleamed in the glow of the flaming building.

"These guys on the ground broke in and set the place afire," Steve said. "I surprised them. I don't think they expected anybody to be there. Vasco and his boys looked in through the front window and spotted me getting beaten to a bloody pulp. That's all. They didn't do nothing wrong."

"Stand down," Jack ordered the other officers.

_"-I-_ run this show," the sergeant said.

"Unless you want to get busted down to street duty by the governor himself," Jack told the sergeant, "you'll back the hell off and let the man speak. You have no idea what you just stepped into."

The sergeant looked at Steve, his shirt burned off his back and face smeared with soot, and made a command decision.

"Holster your weapons," the sergeant shouted. "I want everybody rounded up for questioning until we sort this thing out!"

Jack peppered him with questions, not really surprised when Steve couldn't answer half of them. He'd told Jack he was Army Special Forces, a truth close enough to reality to satiate the sharp detectives' curiosity and encourage him not to keep digging. Jack had been one of the detectives he'd asked to squelch Mike's poking around when…

Bernice!

"My wife," Steve told Jack. "She's missing. I think these guys have something to do with it!"

"You have friends in high places," Jack said. "Would you like to borrow my cell phone to make a call?"

"Thanks," Steve said. He barked orders at the dispatch inside SHIELD. It would only be a matter of minutes before the men in black descended upon this place like flies.

"Hey!" one of the paramedics shouted. "We've got a live one!"

The paramedic kneeled over Jacquie, her red and black striped hair singed so that nearly all of the red was gone. She was badly burned, but her chest still rose and fell.

"Get her to the ER," the paramedics shouted. They surrounded her, making sure she _kept _breathing.

"Hey," one of them asked. "What's wrong with her eye?"

Steve stepped over her. The heavy makeup Jacquie usually used to mask her Asiatic features and make herself look Caucasian was gone. Her left eye had a perfect bore-hole right through the eye socket, right next to her eyeball. Steve's skin began to crawl. That explained everything.

"You've got to take her into custody," Steve said. The paramedics protested. "Just trust me. Post three guards on her at all times and, no matter how out of it you think she is, never leave her alone."

Black Excursions raced into the scene, temporary blue lights slapped onto their roofs to get them through the traffic. Men in dark suits and SHIELD personnel wearing their black combat fatigues jumped out of the back, whipping out badges and pulling rank on the annoyed cops. SHIELD agents surrounded the paramedics keeping Jacquie alive, accompanying them into the ambulance and following behind to guard her until they figured out if she was just a victim, or a shape shifter in disguise.

Nick Fury stepped out of one of the black Excursions, flames reflecting off his black eye patch as he strode through the crowd as though he were in charge. His fierce expression and the way the black tails of his long black leather coat trailed behind him like a cape erased any thoughts of protest the cops might have made as he assumed command of the crime scene.

"Steve?"

"They've got Bernice," Steve said. "For some reason, they sent these guys to give me a message instead of just killing me outright. I think they're keeping her alive."

He turned to Vasco. "Vasco … you once told me that if you didn't have a record bogging you down, you'd turn over a new leaf. Did you really mean that?"

"Yeah, man," Vasco said. He looked at the gang kids who surrounded him. "I mean … yeah … so long as you don't try to turn me into no pansy or nothing."

Steve looked at Nick Fury.

"This is the man that's going to help you make that happen."

X

_Bernice…_

Vibration. Her hands cuffed behind her back. Cold diamond-plate steel pressing into her face. A feeling akin to rocking … or turbulence?

_Bernice…_

She fought her way through the coldness in her brain, trying to find a way around it. Resist. The harder she fought, the tighter the grip of the sponge she could feel unfurling in her brain.

_Passive resistance is the way of your father's people. Don't fight it. Embrace it…_

An image popped into her mind of Count Rugen, seated on his bench, palms upturned to convey he meant no threat. She stopped struggling and forced her mind to touch upon whatever was unfurling in her brain. If felt like … whispers. As though she could hear the thoughts of thousands of people simultaneously.

_Don't think. They'll be on to you. Just clear your mind and let the thoughts flow around you. Like water around a rock._

Bernice did as she was instructed. As she did, a larger landscape became visible in her mind. It looked like … Earth. Only a 3-D rendition of Earth. As though she were trapped inside of a video game.

'Who are you,' she asked silently in her mind.

_A friend. No matter what happens, don't let them find out you can see this. Your life depends upon it._

X

X

_Note: Marvel Movieverse had The Other, while Ultimate Avengers had Herr Kleiser. It's unclear whether they are one person or two. I'm pretending they are two separate people as, in Ultimate Avengers, there was a plot twist where the Chitauri supreme leader (the Other?) grew tired of Herr Kleiser's attempts to subjugate Earth … and … _

…_I'm not going to tell you more as it would spoil the surprise! LOL!_

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_Images posted: firestorms, updrafts, capoeira, and bezerkers._

_Soundtrack: A Little Help - Alan Silvestri_

_Don't forget to leave a review in the little box below. Love it. Hate it. Wishes. Drop me a line! Reviews make me smile an evil, sadistic grin._


	60. Chapter 60

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**RipplesOfAqua, LEPrecon, Aireon Maris, Qweb, TrickPhotography, blown-transistor, Adamantium Rose, Courtney, Mystewitch, Neko Tiger, Penny Tortoiseshell, Justsuzaku, Arrows the Wolf, Beloved Daughter, gryffindorgal87, Cotton Strings, Tante, **__and __**spiffymac0617.**_

_Special thanks to __**Qweb, **__who pointed out some imperfections in the last chapter. They say it takes fourteen separate sets of eyes to edit a manuscript before it is ready for public consumption. Many hands (or eyes) make light work!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 60

Whispers. Flowing around and through her like water in a stream. Allow. Passively observe the landscape of the almost-Earth she caught glimpses of whenever she let go and became one with the voices. Remain hidden when a loud voice grew near, although some part of her recognized the proximity was not physical, but part of the spongy mass she could feel replicating in her brain.

Pressure. In her ears. Growing uncomfortable. Then popping as the plane hit the ground. Remain quiet. Remain limp. Don't let them know you can hear them even as your body is too numb to move.

A car. No. A van. How many miles? God it was hot! Pavement. How many turns? The whisper of the voices grew louder, supplemented by real-life voices that spoke in short clipped sentences as they passed through some sort of checkpoint? Fruit? Why would someone ask if they were carrying fruit?

More pavement. The feel of the van turning down a gravel road, growing bumpier by the moment. The whispers grew as overwhelming as the stifling heat. So many! So many voices whispering with a single purpose. The occasional discordant note. One bumping against her, a different voice than the one which had spoken to her before. Curious. Fear! It warned her to hide her thoughts or she would be destroyed.

A rock, rounded by thousands of years of passing water until it slipped right past, barely a ripple in the stream. Yes. That was the image to project. Observe. Don't let the water catch on that you can still think.

How far? The car climbing and descending through hilly terrain. Being picked up and carried. Something was coming! An overwhelming presence drew closer. The whispers grew silent and hurried away. Something pricked her skin. Warmth raced through her veins, shaking the coldness out of her brain which had kept her body numb.

"Miss Rosenthal," a light brogue spoke, as melodious and pleasant as a French horn. "Welcome."

Bernice groaned and opened her eyes. She was strapped to a table, her head bound so she could only look straight up. The brutally handsome man who she knew was a shape shifter bent into her field of vision. He looked so much like her husband that, if she ignored the coldness in his voice and subtle differences in their appearance, she might almost mistake him for the man she loved. A trick? To fool her?

"Who are you?"

"Your friend Mike knows me as Mr. Hart," the man said. "Your husband knew my … what do you call it … partner? Herr Kleiser. I believe you met him when he assumed the form of Agent Romanov. Our little grey minions know me as the Other. _You _may call me 'your majesty.'"

"What do you want with me?"

"Why, Deviant child, I want nothing from you," Mr. Hart spat. "Nothing at all. You are vermin. Like all of your people we tried to eradicate until your _husband _interfered."

A chill ran down her spine. Her grandmother had always been tight-lipped about the horrors they had seen when they freed the victims of the holocaust. Steve studiously avoided talking about the subject, the haunted look in his eyes those few times she had asked stopping her in her tracks.

"Why do you impersonate my husband?" Bernice strained at the straps that held her like a frog about to be vivisected in biology class. "I know what you really are!"

"Your husband? Ahh!" Mr. Hart's voice dripped sincerity. "Serendipity. Who would have thought the doppelganger I seized the last time I was here would be the father of the one who assassinated Red Skull? My prize experiment in Celestial retro-engineering? And to think seventy years later he came back to murder my business partner?"

So she was right. He _was _mimicking the man she'd seen in the photograph. But for what purpose?

_'Don't bait him. You must lead him to believe the nanovirus has made you compliant.' _

Mr. Hart's head jerked forward, scrutinizing her as though _he _could hear the voice in her head, as well. She could feel the crushing presence of his mind searching hers, compelling her body to twitch and wiggle as though it were a child's toy. It felt like being … raped. Water. Flowing around a rounded rock. Just let it flow. Be passive and let his thoughts slip right past her, not catching on any jagged edges. Don't do anything. Don't react. Let him manipulate her body. Let him think he has won. His thoughts tried to break through the passive exterior she had formed around the nugget of her identity. Her friend, whoever he was, was taking a terrible risk. Bernice trembled in terror, fearful the Other would kill her.

Mr. Hart's flesh rippled as though his form was unfamiliar to him. An ill-fitting suit which was rarely worn. He adjusted it like a tie on a man accustomed to wearing blue jeans and a tee shirt. Or a king's robe. Was that why Herr Kleiser had waited so long to assume Natasha's form after he had infected her with the nanovirus Bernice could feel unspooling within her own brain? Because it took time for the shape shifters to learn to mimic the physical form of whatever victim they chose to impersonate?

"You wish to see me as I really am?" Mr. Hart gave her a feral grin. "Very well."

Dozens of pinchers erupted out of his chest. Claws thickened and snapped from what had once been hands. Fangs sprouted from his jaws as they elongated into a panther-like black head. His body became that of a gigantic slug. Oh god! Compared to Count Rugen, who was recognizably humanoid, the Other bore no resemblance to any species Bernice had ever seen!

A high pitched noise assaulted her ears and she realized it was her own voice, screaming. She fought to free herself but was unable to move. The creature of nightmare bent over her, taller that it had been before it cast off the constricting form of a human, relishing the power it had seized over her body.

"Is this form more to your liking, Deviant?" the Other asked.

He caressed her cheek as though comforting a child. Thousands of tiny hair-like spikes scratched at her skin. The traitorous organ felt as though it wished to abandon her body and run away. Oh, god! This was the same kind of creature which had gutted Steve like a fish!

_'That is right, Deviant.' _ The Other spoke directly into her mind. It was a crushing, oppressive voice. Not the quiet whisper of whichever creature had urged her to be cautious. He compelled her to be silent. Despite her wish to do otherwise, her body obeyed. No longer under her own command.

So _that _was what the nanovirus did? Bits and fragments of nonsensical information overheard when Doctor Banner had discussed the mysterious scarring in the brains of the Melanesian Island children all of a sudden made sense. Scar tissue. Damaging the old pathways of the brain and rewriting the neural networks to create _new _pathways of thought. The Chitauri had a way to overwrite the DNA of human brains so that they developed the same ability to be controlled as the grey skinned drones!

_'This one is smart for a Deviant,' _the Other said as though hearing her thoughts. The panther-like head cocked to one side, giving her an appraising view_. 'Curious. Don't you think?'_

Bernice couldn't see who he spoke to. Her head was locked into place on the table, but she was aware of other forms moving around her. The voices which answered him were not human voices or language, but that bone-throbbing low vibration she'd come to associate with Count Rugen and the shape shifter which had come to kill him. Several more shape shifters leaned into the table, whatever false persona they wore while on Earth discarded in the safety of their lair. Although her mind wished to scream at their close proximity, whatever compulsion the Other had over her body prevented her from so much as twitching a finger.

_'Her mind is curious, your majesty,' _another voice spoke both around her in the form of that deep throbbing noise, and also within her mind. _'She exhibits unusual memory patterns.'_

_'Her blood is polluted by Deviant DNA.'_

_'But she carries the blood of the Eternals, as well, your majesty. Whoever harnesses such a powerful mind will be able to walk freely in this world in human form.'_

_'We should terminate her immediately, your majesty. Deviant blood is too unpredictable to control.'_

_'Unpolluted Eternal blood is getting harder and harder to find, your majesty. The Eternals separated themselves from this world so they would stop diluting their bloodline. It has forced us to conscript less than perfect doppelgangers.'_

_'We should do what I originally planned. Vivesect her and beam the video live to her mate to break his spirit.'_

Oh … god! No! Bernice tried to fight against the restraints which bound her to the table and could not force her body to respond.

_'If I might propose a better plan, your majesty? Why not allow one of us to conscript her mind as our doppelganger and use it to get close enough to her mate to kill him?'_

_'Yes, your majesty. I second that proposal. There are too many of us who have been unable to find doppelgangers since her mate and his ilk waylaid our plans to rid this world of Deviant DNA.'_

_'Her mate has become a symbol. Let us use her to be rid of him once and for all.'_

"Yes," the Other spoke aloud, giving her an appraising sniff. "This plan will please our god. Thanos has declared we are to either conquer this gateway to the Eternals who oppose him, or destroy it once and for all."

No! She would not let them assume her shape to kill her own husband! Was this what they had done with Agent Romanov? No! She'd rather die!

"Steve won't let you get close to him!" Bernice shouted. "I won't let you! So just kill me now and be done with it!"

"Such brave words for one who's about to be dissected alive," the Other hissed. Saliva dripped from his fangs as he bent close to her face, his fetid breath stinking of rotten meat. The smaller tentacles tugged at her skin as though deciding where to cut with a scalpel.

Bernice's heart pounded so loud it felt as though someone were pounding a kettle drum in her ears. Why did the Other's words aloud not match the words he had just spoken to the other shape shifters?

That friendly voice whispered in her mind, so softly she almost wasn't aware it was still there. _'The communication is meant to be one-sided. Master to slave. They aren't aware you can still hear them when they think they have you turned off. You must keep this information to yourself or they will kill you.'_

An image. A rock. Not reacting. Water flowing around it. Passing it, but not damaging it. Whatever was happening inside her mind that allowed her to hear the hive mind and also to hear _them _was like a computer program. One that, for some reason, she instinctively knew how to manipulate. Part of this Deviant genetic heritage they seemed so concerned about?

"Please … what are you going to do to me?"

"Why … we're going to kill your husband," the Other said. "And _you're _going to help us."

"Wh-what?" Bernice sputtered. "I'll do no such thing."

"You don't have a choice."

A high-pitched whine caught her attention from directly above her head. She looked up and froze. Robotic arms had swung up from the table and were aiming straight at her head. Dozens of them. More arms swung from all sides of the table, aiming for every part of her body.

"What are you doing?" she pleaded.

"Perfecting you."

The drills descended towards her head.

She screamed.

Pain. So much pain as hundreds of tiny needles drilled through her skin, into her skull and bones. Into her _brain._

She passed out from the pain.

X

_Note: I had a hard time writing this chapter. It's really icky trying to crawl into the mind of a super-villain, especially one with no redeeming qualities such as the Other. Not even with ominous music or researching real life evil such as Josef Mengele, a villain so horrific it left me feeling ill. I decided not to post my research on Mengele on my facebook/google+ page except for one vague photo/quote. Instead I found a nifty tutorial to support my fictitious hypothesis about what the Chitauri are doing to their victim's brains. _

_Villains! I think I'm going to go take a shower now. Ick!_

_Don't forget I post extras on both Facebook and Google+ The links are:_

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_Images posted: bionanovirus 101 tutorial, Josef Mengele._

_Soundtrack: Prince of Darkness - City of the Fallen_

_Don't forget to leave a review in the little box below. Love it. Hate it. Wishes. Drop me a line! _


	61. Chapter 61

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Ripples of Aqua, LEPrecon, Katya Jade, blown-transistor, ciro, Courtney, Prospero Hibiki, Beloved Daughter, Qweb, TrickPhotography, Kelly Jo, gryffindorgal87, Mystewitch, Arrows the Wolf, **__and __**Penny Tortoiseshell.**_

_At __**Courtney **__… vivisect … alive … dissect … dead. Got it! _

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 61

Steve stared at the young woman unconscious in the hospital bed. Her chest rose and fell evenly as though she had not a care in the world, a peacefulness which goaded him. Part of him wanted to reach out to the girl whose face would forever bear the scars of fire and hold her hand. To comfort her as Bernice would surely want him to do in her absence. But an even bigger part of him wanted to throttle the young woman and scream, _how could you do this to your best friend?!_

The door opened and closed. One of the other Avengers coming in to check up on where he had sat perched at her bedside like a ravenous bear awaiting a salmon for the last twelve hours?

"Steve." Clintgave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "It would help her find her way back if you talk to her."

"She's a shape shifter," Steve spat.

"No," Clint said. "She's not. She's just a young woman who got taken."

"_You _should understand how I feel better than anyone!"

Clint pulled up a chair and sat down, his expression filled with sorrow. His hands clenched together as though in prayer. Contemplating how to say something he knew Steve would not want to hear.

"Bernice called me the morning she was taken," Clint said. "I didn't want to hear what she had to say. So I was rude to her. But … I've given the matter some thought."

"She called _me, _too!" Steve slammed his fist down upon his thigh. "It was fake! _This _one punching text messages into Bernice's cell phone!"

"No, Steve. Bernice _called _me. In person. I _spoke_ to her that morning."

"It was probably a shape shifter."

"All evidence indicates she was taken _after_ she went out to meet Jacquie for lunch," Clint said. "Bernice called me in the morning."

Steve felt like … the Hulk! Looking for something to smash! He hadn't had this much trouble controlling his anger since … since … since the day he'd busted into Red Skull's fortress and found Bucky Barnes strapped to a table with a drill perched above his skull like an animal awaiting slaughter. He stood up and paced, the reddish-brown boots of his Captain America uniform, the only clothing he had left in this world after the fire, squeaking on the waxed linoleum to accentuate each turn. Was that what they were going to do to Bernice? Oh, god! He couldn't bear to think about it! Without his anger to lean upon like a crutch, all he was left with was his grief. He plunked back down in the chair put his head down into his hands, his words more of a sob than a whisper.

"What did she tell you?"

"She said she'd reviewed every video tape they could find of Natasha before she was injured." Clint's voice broke. "She said she was certain the Natasha who woke up and told me that she loved me was the real … Natasha."

"What does that have to do with _this _one?" Steve gestured towards the sleeping Asian woman as though she were a war criminal.

"It means this is still the real Jacquie," Clint said. "Not a shape shifter. Everything we know about them indicates they can only shift their external façade. Not their internal organs. Jacquie is still human."

"Not a shape shifter … yet!" Steve jabbed his finger at Jacquie as though he were pointing a sword. "How do we know she isn't suddenly going to turn into one? Like in that movie … what was that movie you made me watch after the first invasion? The one where the thing used humans as incubators and burst out of their chests?" Clint and Natasha had dragged him to all-weekend alien fest after they'd brought down the mother ship, all of humanity all of a sudden interested in all things alien.

"Alien."

"Yeah. The one about the aliens. What was the name of that movie?"

"That _was_ the name of the movie. Alien."

Clint got a wistful expression on his face. They had all been riding on the high of having just taken down the alien armada and it was the first time Steve had noticed the two appeared to have more between them than simple colleagues. Sadness haunted the archer's eyes.

"Clint?"

"I didn't want to send her into the caves at Ambrym," Clint said. "Bernice said the body language in the videos clearly shows a change in the way Natasha reacted to her environment after that mission. That's when they're certain she was taken."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I knew her game was off!" Clint said. "Whatever they did to her, it slowed her reaction time. Like a computer that's got a ghost drive running someplace in the background. But she begged me to give her a chance to earn back everybody's trust. Especially _yours._ It hurt her that you didn't trust her anymore."

"For good reason!"

"Bernice said she was pretty sure that was still the real Natasha up until that mission." Clint's eyes glistened, his grief at her loss still raw and new. "Not a shape shifter. It means Natasha was taken because _-I- _put her in the line of fire before she was ready."

Clint looked down at his feet, his hands clenched tightly together. As though by doing so, he could contain his grief and crush it between his bare hands.

Steve knew exactly how he felt.

"At least … it means …" Clint whispered. "It means what Natasha said to me was real. Not an alien lie."

Clint jerked to his feet and stalked towards the light board which had x-rays and the results of every other scan known to mankind of Jacquie's brain. The scans showed the same insidious scar tissue they'd found inside the six Melanesian Island children's brain as well as Count Rugen's. Scarring they now knew wasn't caused solely by the trauma of having a hole bored into your eye socket, but from whatever pathogen the Chitauri left behind which enabled them to hijack their victim's bodies and turn them into drones.

From the shudder of Clint's back, the way he kept his face turned away so Steve could not see it, his interest had nothing to do with the scans. The stoic archer didn't want to let anyone see him weep. Or cause _Steve _to break down and cry, an emotion he, himself, was having great difficulty keeping in check. Grief was … unhelpful. An emotion of last resort. Something men were not supposed to allow themselves to feel until all other options had been exhausted and there was no longer any hope. Steve was not ready to succumb to that emotion … yet.

Clint composed his sadness and put it back into that place _all _men were trained to put their feelings from birth so they didn't show. He sat back down, staring once more at his hands. They sat in a companionable silence, two men who had both just lost the women they loved, waiting for Jacquie to wake up. Unlike Clint, Steve had hope Bernice was still alive. Why send a messenger to say they had her unless they wished to use her as a pawn?

"I'm wasting my time here," Steve said at last. "I should be out looking for her." He got back up and started to pace again.

"Every man we've got is searching for her," Clint said. "As soon as we isolate a door for you to bust down and go get her, we'll let you off your leash. Until then, Jacquie is our only lead."

"Where's Fury?"

"On his way back from the CDC. Banner convinced the Pentagon to play nicely with the Russians. It seems we're not the only ones who've been having trouble with humans getting turned into drones."

"The Russians?" Steve had missed the whole 'cold war … Russia is our enemy' period of American history. They had been allies, albeit uneasy ones, during World War II, and had already become bedfellows, albeit distrustful ones, once he had woken up. He had never shared the others natural distrust of Natasha … the _real _Natasha … simply because she had once been a Russian agent.

"Why do you think they sent their new attack heli-ship to help us in Vanuatu?" Clint said. "The Chinese, too. Whoever these guys are, they're not just focused on America. You'd be amazed how quickly old differences get set aside once governments wake up and realize the entire _planet _is under attack."

"Natash … uh … Herr Kleiser … um … he said just before you killed him that he'd been here for three hundred years. If everyone had shared information sooner, they wouldn't have a foothold."

"Seriously?" Clint gave him a bemused look. "I can see it now. Excuse me, General George Washington. Those forces you're crossing the Potomac to defeat? They're not really British. But shape shifting aliens from outer space?"

"Okay. I see your point."

Jacquie whimpered. Her breathing grew rapid as her hands twitched, as though fending off an imaginary assailant. She'd been cycling through such nightmares off and on throughout the night.

"She's going to be waking up soon," Clint said.

"Natasha was out of it for a month."

"Banner thinks the infinity serum slowed down the virus's ability to hijack her lymphatic system," Clint said. "She didn't wake up until two weeks _after _she was due for her next injection. Probably why they could find no trace of the virus in your system even though Herr Kleiser tried to inject you. Unlike the rest of us, your immunity is ingrained in your genetic code. It never wears off."

Infinity-serum enhanced soldiers needed to get booster shots every six weeks or the enhancements wore off as the blood supply replenished itself every 120 days. Steve's enhancements, on the other hand, were permanent. Doctor Erskine had managed to encode the enhancements right into his DNA. Now it appeared the Chitauri, whom had been pulling Red Skull's strings, had a _similar _serum engineered to hijack human brains.

"I cut off Herr Kleisher's arm." Steve made a gesture as though swinging up his shield. "I interrupted whatever it was he was trying to do to me."

"They found traces of it in the Marine corporal's system who you saved," Clint said. "Right inside the injection site. You interrupted them before they had a chance to bore all the way inside his brain. They isolated a sample before it mutated and did whatever it does to cause that scarring. Banner said the CDC just finished sequencing it."

"Why wasn't I told?" Steve demanded.

"Because we need you _here,_" Clint said. "With Jacquie. She's going to need a familiar face whenever she wakes up."

"Her family should be here."

"Her family is originally from South Korea," Clint said. "They're not cleared to know this stuff. The Pentagon has decided to keep them out of the loop."

What right did the Pentagon, who had its own mole lurking someplace in the basement, have to hold this girl incognito and not let her family know? Bernice would be furious if she knew how they were treating her best friend. Whether or not Jacquie had somehow been compelled to betray her. On the other hand, what if the girl _could _be hijacked to use as a drone again? Releasing her was too dangerous.

"Eomma! Geomul!" Jacquie mumbled something in Korean, a language Steve did not understand. "Naneun kkaeeonaji moshae!"

Clint, however, did understand. "She's asking for her mother."

Steve trembled with indecision. Turn his back on her and let SHIELD interrogate her like a prisoner? Or do what he knew Bernice would want him to do and give Jacquie the benefit of the doubt? How many drones were there out there, anyways? And how long had the Chitauri been creating them, moving them into position to be useful whenever they needed to pull something unexpected?

"Bernice!" Jacquie cried out. "Naega Bernice dachigehaji ma!"

Steve didn't understand the words, but the tone of voice was unmistakable. He found himself at Jacquie's side, squeezing her hand, before he even had a chance to think about what he was doing.

"Jacquie," he said. "Can you hear me? This is Steve. Bernice's husband. You've got to wake up and tell me where they've taken her."

Jacquie's eyes fluttered and opened. She took one look at him and screamed, attempting to crawl back on the bed and realizing her hands and feet were restrained. She screamed even louder.

"It's okay!" Steve said. He held out his hands where she could see them. "Jacquie … it's all right. You've been restrained because they made you do some bad things and we need to make sure it's really you."

Clint backed off to the corner of the room, figuring _two _strange men would be even more frightening to the girl than one. Jacquie stared at him, taking a moment to recognize him. It was a good thing he was wearing the suit. Otherwise she probably would have kept right on screaming.

"You're Bernice's husband," Jacquie said, her chest rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath.

"Yes."

"You've got to stop him!" Jacquie said. "They made me …. No!"

Jacquie began to weep.

"Miss Ukeum," Clint said from the corner. "The clock is ticking. I know if feels like somebody stuffed a sponge into your brain. But if we're going to get your friend back. We need to move fast. It's been more than 24 hours since they took her.

"I don't know where they've taken her!" Jacquie cried.

"Why don't you start at the beginning," Clint said. He stepped closer so Jacquie could get a good look at his face, which was filled with pity. _He _of all people knew what it was like when somebody woke up after having been taken.

"When did they do … this … to you?" Steve pointed to the injection site next to Jacquie's eye.

"Mike called me," Jacquie said. "He said they'd dug up evidence you were working with Al Qaida to recruit gang kids to carry suicide bombs."

Mike! Steve turned red with anger.

"And you believed him?"

"Hey," Jacquie said, regaining a bit of the bluster he had seen both times he had met her. "I don't know you from a hole in the head. Bernice starts drawing pictures of some guy she met in the halls of her grandmother's nursing home, and then one day you show up at our apartment all beat to crap from some battle _she _says was the aliens again, but the news said was a terrorist plot to free some prisoners. And then all of a sudden, whammo! You two are married and she's not even returning my calls. I met you like … what? Twice? For less than two minutes each time? It's not like I even had a chance to get to know you."

Jacquie's words rang true. He'd uprooted Bernice from her _own _life and plopped her down into his surreal world just as surely as fate had uprooted him from 1945 and plunked him down into the middle of an alien invasion in 2012.

"I'm sorry about that," Steve said. He gestured to the room around him, which was obviously an observation room in a high-security military facility. "But as you can see, I'm not Al Qaida."

"How do _-I- _know that?" Jacquie hissed. She struggled at the restraints which bound her hand and foot. "I have a right to make a phone call. I demand to call my lawyer."

"You've been classified as an enemy combatant, Miss Ukeum," Clint said. "All civil rights have been suspended until we straighten this out."

Steve turned to Clint with surprise.

"You can't just suspend the Constitution! Even Nazi war criminals had the right to contact the Red Cross and ensure they were being treated according to the articles of the Geneva Convention!"

Jacquie gave him a curious look.

"The guy Mike brought with him," Jacquie said. "Mr. Hart was his name. He had this crazy story about you."

"What?"

"He said you were the same Steve Rogers that Bernice's grandmother had served with in World War II. Not just the grandson."

"Mr. Hart is correct," Steve said. "I was … detained … a good seventy years … before I was free to return … here."

Jacquie swallowed.

"This guy … Mr. Hart?" Jacquie said. "He had another crazy story he told me before he grabbed me and did … this."

"What?" Steve said.

"He looked a lot like you," Jacquie said. "I asked him about it. He just laughed and said it was serendipity."

"What was … serendipitous?"

"He said he'd killed your father."

Steve felt as though he'd been punched. A trick! It was all a trick to get him off balance. He stepped back, letting go of her hand, and punched the mirrored one-way glass of the observation room. The glass was bulletproof, but he could detect shadows of movement behind the glass. SHIELD personnel observing, no doubt.

"My father died in a construction accident in 1924!"

Clint stepped forward, intently interested. "Where did Mike take you to meet this Mr. Hart?"

"They met me at my apartment," Jacquie said. She glanced at Steve, fear in her eyes. "Mike still has a key. It used to be _his _apartment. Before he broke off his engagement to Bernice and moved out."

Steve moved towards the door. The door opened. Maria Hill stepped inside, her arm still in a sling from her near-fatal injuries several weeks before. Steve had been at deaths door and healed almost completely … twice. Maria, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. Unlike the front-line Avengers, she was _not _a recipient of the infinity serum. _Not _getting killed had to be front and center in her mind right now.

"Let's get all the information we can before we go running into an ambush, shan't we, Cap?" Maria said. "Director Fury will be furious if I let his prize super-soldier get all banged up again. I think we've _both _been run through the wring cycle a few too many times the past few weeks."

"We're wasting time," Steve said. He shuddered with the need to _go _to where they could find this shady ex-boyfriend of his wife and beat the crap out of him.

"Hear the girl out." Maria's demeanor was professional and crisp. "That's an order, Cap." She turned to someone in the room behind her and barked orders for them to follow up on this latest lead.

Obeying a direct order from the Assistant Deputy Director warred with his desire to hunt Mike Farrel down like a rat and strangle the information out of him. It was the way Maria instinctively ran her hand over the spot where she'd taken a bullet to the gut, however, which caused him to see reason. He, himself, was still in less than prime physical form. He was in no condition to take on a shape shifter by himself. Doing so might not only get _him _killed, but Bernice as well.

"Make it fast!"

"Do you know where Mike Farrel is right now, Miss Ukeum?" Clint asked.

"He works at the law firm of Wolfram and Hart," Jacquie said. "40 West 40th Street in midtown. I think this Mr. Hart is Mike's boss."

Steve's skin began to crawl. His eyes met Clint's eyes. Clint didn't have a clue.

"That's where my father died," Steve said. "I was only four. But I remember my mother crying because they said his body was so badly damaged they couldn't have an open casket at the wake. The building owners picked up all expenses for the funeral."

"We've got a lead!" Maria shouted at the observers taping everything behind her. "Agent Kubrowski … call Iron Man and tell him to suit up. I want him to meet us on the roof of the American Radiator Building. Agent Amon … call down to the sparring room and tell Thor it's time to rock and roll. He's been waiting here on standby since he got word Commander Roger's wife had been taken. Agent Chounan … I want a team of SHIELD agents sent to Mike Farrel's residence. Just in case. And notify the state police. I want every asset we've got … and a SWAT team … converging at that law firm within the hour."

"Yes, Ma'am!" the agents shouted.

Steve noticed that Maria Hill still looked pale and wan beneath her makeup. Last he'd heard, she wasn't cleared to return to work for another week. She'd come back in early because of _him._

"Would you like me to call Director Fury and Banner and tell them to meet us at 40th street, Ma'am?" one of the agents asked. "Their ETA is about 1.5 hours."

"Yes, thank you," Maria Hill said. She turned back to Steve. "You've got ten minutes to get whatever additional information you can get out of that girl. And then we're leaving."

Steve turned back to Jacquie. Her tough girl act was now gone. She was crying.

"Please get her back for me," Jacquie wept. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I led that man to her and hit you over the head with a tire iron. I knew what I was doing was wrong! But I couldn't make my body stop. If felt as if somebody was using me as their meat puppet. Like one of those zombie movies."

Steve did not get the cultural reference. But obviously Clint did. He sat at the edge of the bed and took her hand.

"You're lucky to still be alive," Clint said. He touched the bandage on her cheek, where she'd suffered second degree burns. Burns which would scar her for the rest of her life. "We've got to keep you locked up until we figure out what to do with you. But this room is secure. If you promise to remain calm and not smash all our pricey medical equipment. I can release these restraints."

"Can I call my mother?" Jacquie asked.

"No," Clint said. He squeezed her hand. "Not just because we're afraid you might do something to us. These bastards have a way of compelling you to keep doing things you don't want to do. Until we figure out how to fix what they did to your brain, you're going to have to stay here."

Tears streamed down Jacquie's cheeks. Steve wished he could feel pity for her. Part of him did. But the part of him that wanted to throttle her for betraying Bernice was getting the better of him right now. Especially in light of the one-two punch she'd just given him with her crazy claims the shape shifter was getting a cheap thrill out of impersonating his father. Who quite possibly _might _have died at these bastard's hands!

It was too much even for _him _to process. Even the skinny part of him that could forgive pretty darned near much anything.

His ten minutes up, Steve grabbed Clint and joined the rest of the Avengers to go free the woman he loved.

X

_Note: It's so unlike Steve to not be compassionate. He knows he -should.- But he -has- to be reeling from losing his wife, losing his gym, and losing what few trinkets he has from his past. And then he finds out Mr. Hart is getting a cheap thrill out of shape shifting into his father's shape. Even Mr. Perfect has to show a little wear around the edges from time to time. It if were me, I'd be smashing tables and screaming my head off at everyone._

_Don't forget I post extras on both Facebook and Google+ The links are:_

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_Images posted: Steve and Hawkeye, Jacquie, Maria Hill._

_Soundtrack: Divine Afflatus - Michael Donner_

_Don't forget to leave a review in the little box below. Love it. Hate it. Wishes. Drop me a line! _


	62. Chapter 62

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**blown-transistor, Katya Jade, Aireon Maris, RipplesofAqua, Neko Tiger, Adamantium Rose, Qweb, XcrazyXookamiX, Penny Tortoiseshell, spiffymac0617, Mystewitch, LEPrecon, Beloved Daughter, Trick Photography, **__and __**Navidasti.**_

_Special thanks to __**Adamantium Rose, **__who pointed out some grammar snafu's. I attended primary school during the 'whole language theory' years (when the dogma said just have kids read a lot without teaching them a lot of boring grammar and they'd pick it up on their own). Actually, 99% of the time they're right. But things like 's and s' always hang me up._

_Nanovirus … not real … see Facebook/Google+ notes._

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 62

"Blue Boys, this is the Hilltop," Maria Hills voice came over the comms unit. "You boys ready to bust down the door?"

"Roger, Hilltop," the state police SWAT team said. "Boys in blue are ready to swarm."

"PD, how are the evacuations going in the surrounding buildings?"

"We're slipping them out through the parking garage," the NYPD sergeant called. "All traffic in and out of West 40th has been rerouted."

"Make sure no pedestrians get through," Maria Hill called. "Undercover PD only. I don't care _what _their excuse is. Keep them out of there."

"We got the DPW here spraying water all over the place," NYPD called. "It looks pretty convincing."

"Blue Boys," Maria Hill called. "NYPD is ready to roll. Iron Man? You ready to rock and roll?"

"Just tell me when to land, Hilltop." Tony Stark's voice came over the comms unit. "I've got a line of sight from a rooftop on 38th Street."

"Hawkeye?" Maria Hill called.

"Got a birds-eye view into the penthouse from building 41," Hawkeye called. "Snipers in position on 39, 42, 38."

"God of Thunder?" Maria Hill called.

"The men of water have loaned me a most unattractive orange suit to place over my armor," Thor complained. "They say I must bind back my hair. Is it a punishment, to require such attire for your waterbearers?"

It was an almost hysterical laugh which escaped Steve's throat. He just wanted to smash down the front doors of the American Radiator Building and find his wife. But he wasn't in charge of this mission, too emotionally compromised to be an impartial leader. An action, no doubt, designed to undermine his normally cool-headed deliberation and entice him to lead his men into an ambush. He was glad Maria Hill had come back to take charge. Having herself been nearly killed by human drones during the attempt to assassinate Count Rugen, Hill wouldn't take any chances.

Steve looked down at his _own _ungodly yellow Department of Public Works uniform. A water main break. That was the scenario Maria Hill had dreamed up to cordon off the building and reduce the likelihood of civilian injuries. That way, if the building ended up being no more than the workplace of the man they were after, the Avengers wouldn't take unnecessary heat. It was funny how quickly the public forgot to be grateful when a subsequent mission to root out an alien threat turned out to be bad intelligence.

"Are you ready to go, Commander Rogers?" the head DPW guy asked.

The DPW workers coached the six SHIELD agents under his command. They were borrowing DPW uniforms and equipment to infiltrate the building. Thor was doing the same thing, only his group would be impersonating orange-clad electrical workers. As they geared up, the _real _DPW workers were fiddling with the electricity to create rolling brownouts to the other buildings so they had an excuse to evacuate them. The DPW was creating fake water main breaks so the police had an excuse to cordon off the streets. The goal was to reroute the pressure so they could redirect it to create a phenomenon called 'water hammer' which would cause the pipes within the American Radiator Building to shudder and moan every time a faucet was opened or toilet flushed. With a building built in 1924, some of the pipes might blow gaskets, adding to the special effects.

"How's your guy doing down in the tunnels?" Steve asked.

The DPW chief called into a small two-way radio clipped to his orange suspenders at his shoulder. A voice came from the other end. A DPW worker had crept into the basement through an access tunnel, a single SHIELD agent sent to act as a bodyguard. Sending in an entire unit would arouse too much attention, but they'd located a worker recently discharged from the military after three tours of duty in Afghanistan.

"Pressure dampeners have been removed," the guy in the basement called. "They've got full 500 psi street pressure running through their pipes. _That _should cause problems! Listen to those babies sing!"

The sound of pipes humming in the background could be heard over the radio, reminding Steve of the sound he'd heard in the caldera at Yasur volcano as the aliens had used steam pressure to power their mother-ship before firing their primary propulsion system. It sounded as though a mule were kicking the pipes.

"Great job!" the DPW chief called. "Now get the hell out of there. The last time we had a bunch of costumed superheroes descend upon our city, half of midtown was destroyed."

"Roger," the guy in the tunnel called.

"Hilltop, Hilltop, this is the Cap," Steve called over the radio. "Water hammer is a go. Repeat. Water hammer is a go. It's time to start the show."

"Roger, Cap," Maria Hill called. "Blue Boys, this is Hilltop. The water boys are about to take a shower."

Steve nodded to the DPW chief. He shouted something down to the guy down in the access tunnel. A sound like an enormous rusty wheel being turned filtered up through the open manhole. The DPW shut off _some _valves to siphon off pressure from other parts of the city, while _opening_ up other valves to increase the pressure to the building they were about to storm. At the edges of the city block, fire hydrants deliberately opened to mimic a water main break spilled just enough water onto the street to be convincing.

"It's raining," Steve called over the radio.

He was glad he had the water resistant yellow suit over his armor. His blue helmet was tucked into a duffle bag along with his shield and weapons, but for now he wore a yellow hard hat to blend in. By the time they'd wrapped his midsection with braces to make sure his newly healed stitches didn't pop and spill his guts out onto the pavement, his armor fit so tight he felt like a stuffed sausage. As much as he wanted to just bust down the door and rescue his wife, he wasn't really in shape to fight _anyone. _Much less a shape shifter. He needed to work with his team.

"Everybody … move," Maria Hill called over the radio. "Fury, what's your ETA?"

"With or without our little green friend?" Fury called.

"Without," Maria Hill called. "I want to keep destruction down to a minimum."

"Half an hour," Fury called. "Less if you need the Green Man."

"Green Man stand by," Maria Hill called. "It's Banner we need for this operation. No Green Man unless the excrement hits the fan."

A rare laugh barked over the radio unit. "You are forever efficient Number Two," Nick Fury called. "You'll stay in command unless we need to split off into two groups. Fury out."

It occurred to Steve how badly he missed having the _real _Natasha at his side. Thor was a demi-god. Iron Man was protected by his suit. Banner's alter-egoprotected him from any weapon short of a nuke_. _Hawkeye was usually perched on a rooftop as a sniper to provide cover, the best use of his skillset. Steve was just a soldier. Somebody who ran in and duked it out with the opposition. Only Natasha had been more 'hands on' than him. This was the first time he'd been able to acknowledge the loss of a fallen comrade without feeling the hatred he'd developed towards the creature who had seized control of her, Herr Kleiser.

Steve stared up at the ominous black granite skyscraper where his father had died. He had never been able to bring himself to go inside this building. Ever. Even as a child, the gothic architecture had come to symbolize evil. Gold-painted gargoyles stared down at the men and women clad in business suits exiting the building as though watching their every move. The NYPD stationed just outside the periphery would detain and put them through a perfunctory medical check, looking for symptoms of those who'd been injected as future drones. A security guard walked up with curiosity.

"We're losing water pressure on 38th Street." Steve recited the line the DPW chief had made him repeat several times until it had sounded convincing. "We think we've traced the leak to this building."

"We've had no reports of problems with the plumbing," the guard said. "Let me make a call upstairs."

As if on cue, a woman came running out of the ladies room, her pretty silk blouse saturated with water.

"Sir! Sir!" the woman called. "Sir … there's a problem with the bathroom. The faucets burst open and water is spraying everywhere."

Steve shot the guard his best 'I told you so' grin and tipped his hat at the woman. "Ma'am. We're here to fix it for you."

"This way," the woman said. She stopped at the doorway and pointed inside as though pointing at a wild animal. Water erupted like geysers from the toilet bowls and sprayed out of the faucets like a B-grade horror movie.

"I had no idea!" the guard said. "They don't tell us nothing down here!"

"This is really bad," Steve said. "Let me call it in." He made a big show of picking up the radio strapped to the shoulder of the ghastly yellow jumpsuit. "Hey … Fred! This is Steve. I think we found the source of the drop in pressure. This entire building is erupting like Krakatoa."

"We'd better shut down the electrical system so the people don't get fried," the SHIELD agent posing as 'Fred' called over the radio. "Bjorn's team is just one block from there. Go check the water stabilization unit on the roof so them lawyers don't get their paperwork all wet. Bjorn will put the building on backup power until we can get this mess straightened out."

"Got it," Steve said. He turned to the guard, who had been joined by two of his compatriots. "You guys get that?"

"Yes, Sir," the guards said. "Should we evacuate the building?"

"Why don't you wait until we figure out if this building is the source of the problem?" Steve said. "Tell Bjorn to come up and find me the minute he gets here. You can't miss him. Big bear of a guy with a pony tail. Talks like he's straight out of the middle ages."

If he wasn't so worried about his wife, he would have laughed at them. Bjorn was a modernization of Thor's name which translated, literally, into 'bear.' A fitting nickname for the big Asgardian. He grabbed the bag containing his shield and signaled the others to head for the elevators.

"Sir," the guard said. "The roof is accessed through the penthouse. You can't get into the upper floors without a key."

Steve tilted his hard hat and gestured towards the elevator. A small stream of water that had escaped the ladies room ran past the guards foot.

"Well?"

"I'll go get it right away, Sir."

The guard stepped into the elevator with Steve and SHIELD agents disguised as DPW workers. The guard glanced nervously from agent to agent, picking up on the fact this group was unusually tense for a group of DPW workers.

"Almost nobody ever comes up to this floor." The guard fiddled with the big, old-fashioned key. "We only have this key in case of emergencies."

"I know a guy who works here," Steve said. "Mike Farrel. Do you know what floor he works on?"

"A lot of people work here," the guard said. He frowned. "I think that's the guy they just promoted to full partner. Those guys all inhabit the seventeenth floor. You've got friends in high places if you know any of them."

"You could say that." Steve glanced at the other SHIELD agents. They were on their way to the floor marked '18.' Who was more important? The mysterious Mr. Hart? Or Mike Farrel? Which one was more likely to know where he could find Bernice?

Mr. Hart. One lesson he'd learned the hard way during World War II was you never got a second chance to cut off the head off a snake. The tiny comms unit buzzed in his ear. The _real _comms unit. Not the one they were using for show.

_'Iron Man in position.'_

A second voice came over the unit. Thor's signal, disguised as ordinary conversation.

_'If thou would be so kind as to direct me to the stairwell? I must confess I possess an aversion to elevators.' _Thor's job was to make sure the mysterious Mr. Hart didn't slip out the back.

_'Anything that tries to escape is going to get an arrow in the backside,'_ Hawkeye said.

Steve waited until the elevator stopped and the guard inserted the key to open the door to the penthouse. Hepushed the tiny push-to-talk button at his throat so the others could hear him speak aloud.

"I've never been in a fancy penthouse before." The signal. Steve reached into his bag and closed his fingers around the hilt of his pulse-reactor equipped service pistol. The latest technology from Stark Industries.

The doors slid open.

One of the SHIELD agents grabbed the guard and shoved him behind them, out of the line of fire. They piled out of the elevator, straight towards the man seated in the desk between two enormous carved doors. The man pushed a button on his desk.

"We've been made!" the man shouted. His voice rang loud and clear over the buildings public address system.

"Get the guard!" Steve shouted.

The SHIELD agent dove for the man guarding the two offices.

The guard reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pump-action shotgun. He fired.

The SHIELD agent yelped and fell to the floor. A second agent tackled the shooter before he could get off a second shot and punched him in the face. One. Down. The agent who had been shot writhed on the floor in pain, holding his shoulder. A non-fatal wound.

Steve headed towards the enormous carved doors. Which one? The Nazi's had built their concentration camps around their concepts of tidiness and order. Human instinct dictated he should go to the right.

He went left.

He burst through the door, gun drawn, and aimed it at the figure seated on a chair with its back turned to him. Sunlight streamed through the window, making the man little more than a silhouette. The chair turned. Seated was an old man. So old, it barely looked like he was even breathing. He had a metal ring around his head, just like the Melanesian Island children.

"Where is she?"

The man reached into his desk drawer. Steve leaped over the desk and knocked the man onto the floor. The man had to be a century old if he was a day.

"You are powerless to stop us, man out of time," the old man said, his words deliberate and slow. He did not otherwise struggle, except to take a breath.

Steve grabbed his tie, dragging the old man's face close to his. The old man's eyes grew confused, and then panicked.

"Where am I?" The eyes which looked at Steve now were not the ones of a moment earlier, but the rheumy eyes of a very old man.

The old man was as light as a feather. Ancient bones crunched beneath his weight. Steve hesitated. If this man was a shape shifter, he would have transformed already to fight back in a more powerful form. Another drone? The old man shuddered, his mouth opening and shutting as he gasped like a fish. Steve knew what was happening, and he was powerless to stop it.

"Sir! Sir!" Steve shouted. "Hang on. We're here to help you. Just keep breathing."

The old man's eyes slid shut. Whatever the Chitauri included in the 'kill' command, it must release endorphins in the brain because the look on the old man's face as he simply stopped breathing was one of utter peace.

"Sir! Sir!" Steve shook the old man and felt for a pulse. It was no use. The frail old man was already dead. Out in the lobby, he could hear the others go through a similar endeavor with the drone stationed to guard the penthouse. Steve lay the old man down and rushed into the doorway on the right. Inside was Mike Farrel, seated behind an elaborate desk with a placard stating "Geoffrey Wolfram, Esq."

"Mike," Steve held out his hands to show he was unarmed. "Where's Bernice?"

The man who spoke back to him was not the obsessed ex-boyfriend he had met once before, but a puppet for a consciousness which spoke _through _him. The _same _one, he suspected, as he had spoken through the old man in the other room.

"I wagered you would choose the door on the right, man out of time," the puppet master spoke through Mike's body. "You have cost me a tidy sum of money. I shall have to pay up the lost wager."

"Who are you?" Steve asked.

"I _used _to be known as Mr. Hart," the puppet master spoke. "But it seems you just murdered the _original _Mr. Hart. Now I shall be forced to assume a newidentity."

"Where is Bernice?" Steve asked.

"First things first, man out of time," the puppet master said. "You answer a question of mine, and then I shall answer a question of yours."

"What?" Steve glanced around the room for something less lethal than the gun in his hand. If the puppet master killed his drone, Steve would have no way of finding Bernice.

"Which Eternal awakened you from your sleep?" the puppet master asked.

"I don't understand."

"You come back, seventy years after you murdered our prize super-soldier," the puppet master said. "And yet you have not aged. Tell us. Which Eternal opposes our god, Thanos?"

He almost said 'nobody,' but he knew that was not true. He remembered welcoming the icy water into his lungs, clinging to the feel of Peggy's kiss goodbye in his mind to carry with him into eternity. He remembered the overwhelming sense of knowing he had chosen to do the right thing. And then there had been this sense that … something … approved. Had welcomed him into its quiet space and sheltered him until he was needed again.

Time?

No.

Time was his enemy. The Bhagavad Gita did not say _'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' _as Howard Stark had famously misquoted, but _'I am become Time, the destroyer of worlds.'_ In the ancient Sanskrit, the two terms were interchangeable. It had not been _Time_ who had warped the effects of the ice so it would not crush his body while it had been held in suspended animation, but an entity which was the _opposite_ of time. Created at the same moment at the beginning of the universe. Steve realized he was not a man _out _of time, but a man _without_ time.

Eternity.

Brother of Death.

Steve smiled.

"I'm just a guy from Brooklyn."

His fingers clenched around the ornate brass desk lamp he'd discreetly moved his hand towards as the puppet master used Mike's body to taunt him and clobbered him off the side of the head. The puppet master screeched in rage. Steve leaped over the desk and jabbed the switchblade Vasco had given him after the fire into Mike's neck, just enough to cut through flesh and provoke a survival instinct without doing lethal harm. Mike screamed, flailing wildly to be free of the switchblade digging a half-inch deep cut into the bottom of his jaw.

"Breathe!" Steve shouted. "Just breathe!"

He could tell the exact instant when the puppet master lost its hold on Mike, the instinct to escape the blade overriding the puppet master's command to stop breathing as Mike screamed bloody murder. The _same _instinct the old man had used to try to override the kill command, but Steve had made the mistake of comforting the old man before the puppet master had released control. He made no such mistake with Mike.

"Tell me where they took her!" Steve punched Mike again and again. So long as Mike was screaming, the puppet master couldn't dump endorphins into his brain to put him to sleep like a sick old dog in a veterinarian's office.

"Commander Rogers!" Thor's voice boomed from behind him.

"Can't … let him … stop … screaming!" Steve shouted between punches. Hitting the old man had gone against everything Steve had ever stood for. But he felt no such inhibitions about decking Mike. He punched him. Again. And again. And again.

Thor grabbed his hand and tried to stop him. Steve instinctively gave him a back fist to the face, earning a surprised grunt, before he recognized the day glow orange jump suit.

"Sorry," Steve said. "Got to keep him screaming so he doesn't die."

"Mpf … okay," Thor said. "Thou may carry on."

Steve turned back to Mike.

"Where is she you bastard!?"

"Seventeenth floor." Mike trembled with terror. "My office. West corner of the building."

Steve threw the man down, not caring if the puppet master killed him now. Thor clonked Mike over the head with Mjolnir and knocked him unconscious. The _other _event they suspected rendered a drone unreachable by the Chitauri puppet masters, though they didn't know why. He ran three steps at a time down to the seventeenth floor. Secretaries screamed in terror as SHIELD agents burst in behind him, weapons drawn. West. West. Which corner was west? He spied the sun through the glass and ascertained the correct direction. He burst into the office marked Farrel.

"Bernice!"

The plush office was empty, but it had a doorway on one side. Steve twisted the handle and called her name. It was locked.

"Bernice?"

Nothing.

He rammed his shoulder against the door. It was no match for his determination. Or his weight. On the third shove, the door jamb began to splinter. On the fifth, the door frame let go and burst open. Inside was a hall with a private bathroom and second door. Steve rammed down that door as well and rushed inside. Inside was a tiny, but plush, sleeping suite. The kind a senior partner at a multinational law firm might use to catch a few winks of sleep when flying in from another office or working all night on an important case. Or more likely, to bed his secretary. He found her laying on the bed, trussed to the posts like a sacrificial lamb.

"Oh, god, Bernice!" Her chest rose and fell. Unconscious. There was a vial and a syringe on the nightstand. Rohypnol? Some sort of sedative? The bastards! He untied her hands and feet and slipped the gag out of her mouth. "Bernice. Honey. Wake up."

He pulled her into his arms, his heart pounding as he thanked god for finding her alive. Her pupils were enlarged from the drugs, but there was no telltale injection bore from a Chitauri shape shifter. Oh thank god! He kissed her hair, his arms trembling. Thank you! Thank you! Thank god for letting him find her alive!

Bernice whimpered, her voice groggy with sleep.

"Steve?"

"It's okay now, sweetheart," Steve said. He picked her up in his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder. God, he was out of shape! She felt so heavy. Let the _others _mop up this mess and figure out which law firm employees were drones and which were simple office workers.

Oblivious to anything except for getting her away from this horrible place, Steve carried the woman he loved down seventeen flights of stairs to freedom.

X

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_Note: Everybody should be happy now, right? Steve punched Mike's lights out and saved Bernice._

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	63. Chapter 63

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**lazarus73, camo-girl-book-worm, Neko Tiger, Adamantium Rose, Penny Tortoiseshell, Kelly Jo, Arrows the Wolf, LoLoLaLoco, Prospero Hibiki, Courtney, Qweb, Jels, spiffymac0617, LEPrecon, TrickPhotography, Mystewitch, pizzagirl, **__and __**blown-transistor.**_

_At __**Kelly Jo**__ … Rophinal … Steve wouldn't know … check … and used._

_My apologies for these updates taking longer to get written. My annual work 'quiet season' is now over and the excrement is beginning to hit the fan. I will probably proofread this in the morning and find 50 plot holes!_

_Thanks for reading!_

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Chapter 63

"I'm fine!" Bernice protested. "Please stop poking at me!"

"It's for your own good." Steve hovered around her like an overprotective attack dog. "Who knows what those bastards did to you while you were drugged. Bruce?"

"It looks like they pumped enough Rohypnol into her system to drug a horse." Bruce Banner examined the preliminary results of a toxicology screen confirming the substance on the night stand and whatever had Bernice so disoriented were one and the same drug. "But it should have no lasting effects."

"Rohypnol? What is that, anyways?" Steve asked. "A sedative?"

"It's a date rape drug." Bruce interpreted the perplexed look that came across Steve's face. He glanced at Bernice before elaborating. "Date rape is when you don't want to take a chance the girl will say _no, _so you drug her so she's too disoriented to fend you off."

"But why would you want to…" Steve saw the dark shadow which crossed Bernice's face. He had found her tied to a … oh! God! No! Mike hadn't…

"Bernice?" Steve heart raced. "Did he…."

Bernice looked towards the wall in shame, tears welling into her dark eyes. Even as she spoke the words, he knew she was lying. "I don't remember."

It took a minute for the horrid realization to reach his brain. He had always been an even-tempered man, but there were some limits even _he _could be pushed to. Especially when it came to somebody hurting the woman he loved.

Bag. Punching bag. There was a reason he kept punching bags in every corner of his gym. The super-soldier serum had jacked up his testosterone levels to those of a far more aggressive man. Only his deep sense of morality and a lifetime of experience seeking non-violent means of resolving disputes helped him keep the increased aggression caused by the serum in check. It was why the serum had brought out the worst in Red Skull.

When aggression started to override his self-control, Steve had a simple solution. Go find something harmless to punch. But the only thing Steve wanted to punch right now was Mike…

"I'm going to kill him!"

Bruce Banner's face was pure sympathy. "Steve … this isn't the way."

"Isn't it?" Steve turned his back so Bernice wouldn't see his look of rage. Gasping for breath, he tried to get the emotion under control. Bernice needed him to be supportive. She needed him to love her whether or not Mike had raped her while she had been unconscious. It wasn't _her_ fault she had been taken. It was _his_!

The rage rumbled deep within his chest like the growl of a rabid wolf. He lifted his fists to his temples, trying to keep the emotion from erupting. It felt as though his brain were about to pop a gasket. His entire body began to shudder.

"Steve." Bruce pointed to a metal storage cabinet that contained nothing but supplies. "There. Smash." Banner knew better than anyone a thing or two about uncontrollable rage.

"Gyaarh!" Steve punched the cabinet so hard the doors collapsed inward on the first punch, the second one flattening it to the wall. It wasn't enough! He didn't want Bernice to see him like this. He stormed out of the room, running smack into the broad wall of Thor's chest.

"Get out of my way!"

"This is not the way, Commander Rogers," Thor said. "Your beloved needs your reassurances. Not your rage."

On a logical level, he knew Thor was right. Bernice needed him to hold her hand and tell her he loved her no matter _what _had been done to her. Perhaps forced sex was no big deal to someone from 2012. But to him, who had waited until he was married to make love to a woman, the thought of Bernice being tied to a bed and drugged was _doubly _offensive. They had violated her! They had violated the woman he loved in the most offensive, deeply intimate way possible. And they had done it to hurt _him_!

"Let me at him," Steve growled. He tried to shove past the Asgardian. Thor stood firm.

"Steve," Clint stepped out of the door of the observation room. "We don't know anything, yet. Let Banner examine her for … for … they need to take samples to see if there's any … evidence."

"Whatever the hell for!" Steve shouted. "_Nobody _is going to touch her, ever again, unless she _wants _to be touched!" He shoved past the two of them, determined to get to Mike's cell to throttle the life out of him.

Thor and Clint each grabbed a side, a two-man tag team, physically picking him up and carrying him back into the room where he'd just left Bernice alone with Banner. For all his contempt when he had found Tony Stark and Thor duking it out in the woods with Loki standing by laughing at them, Steve now understood what it felt like to want to strike his fellow team members.

"S-s-steve?" Bernice sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I want to go home." She trembled like a child who had just been beaten.

"We _have _no home anymore," Steve hissed. "Those bastards burned it to the ground!"

"Steve, you need to calm down," Banner said. He placed a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Just let me run some … tests. And then you two can leave."

"I want to go home," Bernice sobbed, her arms wrapped around herself as though she were freezing. "Please! I just want to go home. Steve!" Her lips quivered, those perfect lips that reminded him so much of her grandmother's even though never once had he seen Peggy weep.

Time. Time had taken enough from him, dammit! He wouldn't let it ravage the woman he loved! He whirled to face the others, he and Bernice against the three Avengers. They weren't going to let him get to Mike. Not right this minute. But he'd be _damned_ if he was going to let them violate Bernice any more than she had already been violated.

"We need to collect a rape kit," Bruce said. "It's the only way the police can prosecute Mike for what he has done."

"I want to go home!" Bernice slid off the examination table and tucked herself into the protection of his arms. Sobbing, she buried her face in his chest.

Steve had no idea what a 'rape kit' was, but there was no way in hell he was going to let them force her to do anything more against her will than had already been done to her. They could take their prosecution and shove it up their wazoo! If there was going to be any justice dispensed, it would be the way it had been dispensed back in 1945 when a man forced a woman against her will. By _him _the minute SHIELD turned their back and let him get close to Mike. There was nowhere the bastard could run and hide.

"Let's get out of here." Steve escorted her towards the door.

"We haven't finished running tests," Bruce protested. "She has to stay here until we make sure they haven't turned her into a drone."

"You can run your tests _after _she's had time to recover," Steve snarled. He grabbed her coat and put himself between Bernice and the others, backing down the hallway towards the nearest exist. "I see no sign of an injection. You can satisfy your curiosity later."

They followed him all the way to the exterior of the Triskelion, not daring to intercept them. Clint nodded to the National Guardsmen stationed outside to let them pass. All three of the men understood, on a primal level, Steve's need to shelter her. He grabbed the keys to the nearest SHIELD fleet vehicle, not caring who it belonged to, and sat her inside.

"Where will we go?" Bernice stared out the window of the car, avoiding eye contact. Steve floored it, the tires chirping as he rounded the seawall around Governor's island and entered the tunnel which connected the island to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

"Your old apartment," Steve said. "It's empty right now."

"No!" Bernice's voice trembled. "Jacquie was the one who lured me into a trap!"

"Jacquie isn't in any position to hurt anyone," Steve said. "We captured her. She survived the fire."

"I thought …" Bernice looked surprised. "I mean …"

"What?"

"Nothing," Bernice said. "My old apartment will be fine. I still have my bed and most of my stuff there."

They drove through the tunnel and out onto the streets of Brooklyn in silence, navigating the late-evening traffic into her old neighborhood. He located a parking spot and locked up the Excursion, not caring whether people stared at his red, white and blue battle armor. He didn't even have a coat to put over it. Nothing. The bastards had quite literally burned everything, including the shirt off his back. All he had left in this world was Bernice. Heaven help the person who tried to harm her again.

Bernice fumbled in her pocket for her key. They ascended the stairs to her old apartment. _Mike's _old apartment. It was one thing to be transformed into a drone, but what Mike had done to her was deeply personal. _Never, _in all his time dealing with the shape shifters, whether in this century or the last, had he heard of rape being part of the modus operandi of the Chitauri. If Mike had raped her, it was because he had been _conscious _of what he was doing. It fit in with everything he knew about Bernice's obsessed ex-fiancé.

She flipped on the lights, the apartment curiously vacant now that much of Bernice's artwork had been replaced by Jacquie's more modern tastes.

"I'm so sorry." He tugged her into his arms and kissed her hair, unwilling to let her go now that he had found her again. "This is my fault. They took you to get to _me." _He did not dare talk about the _other _topic on his mind. Not unless _she _wanted to talk about it!

She gave him a wistful smile. "Would you mind if I took a shower?"

Shower. Of course... If he were in her shoes, _he _would want to take a shower as well. He nodded. The soft click of the lock on the bathroom door resonated in his spirit. She was locking him out? Of course. She didn't want him to know. He would play along, whether she wished to talk about it and cry, or pretend like nothing had happened. In _his _day, the closest male relatives would beat the perpetrator to a bloody pulp, kill or castrate them if they could get away with it, and then the matter would never be spoken of again. He swore to himself he would kill the bastard. Or at the very least, make sure the evil bastard lacked the necessary hardware to commit such a heinous act against a woman ever again.

The water ran, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He had been in her apartment several times, the last time after he'd gotten smacked against the wall by the shape shifter and broken his leg, but he had never really had the opportunity to poke around before. The water ran and ran as Bernice washed away her shame.

He was drawn to an easel over in one corner. Jacquie's art work? Or Bernice's? She had yet to bring over any more than her sketchpad. He lifted the tarp and, just for an instant, memory of a more innocent time in their relationship lifted his dark mood. He ran his hand along the painting. _Him._ On the still rings. Balanced in a perfect Carmona-to-inverted-cross. The day she had walked back into his life, looking for _him. _She had painted this from memory?

The bathroom lock clicked open. Steve hastily put the tarp back down and pretended not to have seen the painting. Perhaps she was saving it for a Christmas present? The holiday was, after all, little more than a week away. Thank god she had kept it here or it would have been lost in the fire along with everything else.

Her hair was slicked back against her head like a wet otter. Her ancient bathrobe was so tattered it should have been long ago relegated for a rag heap. At least she still _had _a piece of her past. Unlike him, who had lost what little he had left in the fire.

"Time," he snorted with anger.

"Yes, time." Bernice said, giving him a coy smile. She closed the distance between them and reached up to slip her hands around his neck, her dark eyes filled with lust. "We have all the time in the world."

"Not in my world!" Hatred tinged his voice. "The old bastard dogs me every chance he gets."

Fire rose in Bernice's eyes. The emotion passed, replaced with calm detachment

"Time for ourselves," Bernice said. She tugged him towards her old bedroom. "Time is on our side."

He hesitated, uneasiness sitting in his gut like a hot dog bought from one of those gas station steamers for a buck. She led him into the bedroom, her eyes glittering with some emotion as she stood before him and dropped her robe. She wore nothing beneath it. Nothing at all. Was she presenting herself to him for examination, part of her attempt to pretend nothing had happened? Or was she looking to him to erase the stain of her perpetrator out of her mind?

"We don't have to do this tonight, sweetheart." A sigh escaped as he kissed her forehead. "No matter what he did to you, I love you no matter what."

That was not true. Some part of him, the part that felt betrayed even though he knew it was not her fault she had been raped, didn't want to touch her so soon after … after … oh god! He was no better than the bastard who had violated her!

"Your armor is in the way." She fumbled with the places where his armor segments overlapped. "How can I get at you with all this armor?"

He allowed her to strip him, one layer at a time, and lead him to the bed, as though she were a siren relishing each layer that was removed. Uneasiness sat in his gut, but he silenced it. If this was how she wished to remove the trauma in her own mind, then he would do his best to perform for her. Even though he wished to do nothing more than spoon around her and protect her from this world where death and time kept all in its clutches. The ice beckoned to him, that quiet, cold place which had sheltered him for 67 years while Time had passed him by, its presence so palpable it felt as though all he had to do was inhale and the icy water would freeze them both for another 67 years.

"The bastard tried to take you from me," Steve said. "But we stopped him."

"Mike?" Bernice got a dark look in her eyes. "You would kill him for me, wouldn't you?" Her eyes glittered with a look he had seen many times in others. Blood lust. Whatever Mike had done to her, it had made her hard and cold.

"Yes," Steve acknowledged.

She gave him a wolfish grin as she pushed him down on the bed, straddling him. God, she was heavy. She traced the two jagged scars that ran from sternum to pelvis, a pleased expression upon her face as she kissed the two scars. His vulnerable flesh quivered beneath her touch, the scars so raw and new that it hurt to be kissed there.

"What else would you do for me, man out of time?" She reached down to fondle him, but try as he would, he was unable to achieve an erection. He _wanted _to pretend nothing had happened, but something just didn't feel right. Once again, he was failing her!

"He won't hurt you again," Steve promised, giving her the only reassurance he could. "I swear to god."

"Mike?"

"Time," Steve said.

A puzzled look crossed her face.

"But you always said time was your friend."

Steve's blood ran cold. Something was not right.

"I won't let it take you from me," Steve said.

"You love Time," Bernice whispered, her hips brushing against his genitals. "That's what you said the day you asked me to marry you in that gutted out old church." She bent down to kiss him, nipping his lower lip.

He stiffened. It occurred to him how very vulnerable he was right now, naked, still weak from partially healed injuries, her hips straddling his like a lead blanket. Funny how she had never seemed this heavy before? Love … time? That was _not _what he had said the day he had brought her to Saint Brigid's and begged her to become his wife. In fact, he had said the _opposite _of that. The shadow of something rising out of her back highlighted against the ceiling caught his eye.

"Yes." Steve tensed every muscle in his body. "Time is your god. Death. Destroyer of worlds."

The scorpion-like stinger darted straight for his eye. He was a prize the Chitauri wished to convert into a drone. He rolled his head to one side, unable to shake her as she pinned his hands to the bed, the stinger loaded with the nano-virus the creatures injected into the limbic system of their victims dripping from its point. He fought to get free, but she had the strength and weight of a far larger creature, and she had him pinned in the most vulnerable position you could possibly get a man into. She tried to sting him again and again, his reflexes too quick for her to sink it into his brain.

"What did you do to Bernice?" he shouted.

"We have taken her for our puppet, man out of time." Her features began to elongate and sprout fangs, claws erupting from the arms she was using to hold onto him. "And we soon shall take _you."_

"Over my dead body!"

"That can be arranged!" The shape shifter was no longer recognizably Bernice, but the creature which had inhabited his nightmares ever since he had run into one in the belly of the volcano. This was not the creature he had encountered before. Or Herr Kleiser. Or even the one which had used Mike's body to taunt him. But it was _still _stronger than he was.

Steve bent his legs towards the ceiling, the feeling of thousands of tiny, sharp armored hairs rubbing the skin off his legs, and wrapped his ankles around the back of the creature's neck. It bit him in the ankle, pain shooting up his leg as fangs hit bone, but the momentary distraction enabled Steve to send the creature flying backwards, allowing him to get out from underneath it. It got up and rushed towards him again before he could even roll off the bed and get his footing. Two enormous claws and dozens of smaller ones all snapped at him as the creature gave up trying to sting him and turn him into a drone and simply kill him.

Weapon. Weapon. He needed a weapon. The damned thing had gotten him but good, using the ruse of his wife to get him when he was most vulnerable. He glanced at the fantasy art mounted in various places around Bernice's room and blinked at the peculiar curved metal sculpture mounted above her bureau. It reminded him of a bat's wing. Or a pair of moose antlers. He had no idea what it was, but it sure _looked _like a weapon.

He tore the item with the placard proclaiming it to be an 'Official Star Trek Bat'leth' off the wall and swung it straight at the claw which snapped mere millimeters from his neck, nearly cleaving off his head. The blade hit the claw right in the elbow joint, right where the creature's exoskeleton was most vulnerable, and cut clean through.

The creature shrieked. A horrible, inhuman sound. It closed on him again, vile black liquid spurting from the severed limb. Steve almost tripped on a pair of shoes, there being no room in the tiny bedroom to maneuver. But that left the creature little room to maneuver, as well. He had been in this room before. The creature had not. What could he use to his advantage?

Pounding came from the front of the apartment. Had the neighbors called the police? Time. He just needed to buy some time.

"Do you know what tipped me off you were fake?" Steve taunted.

"What?"

If this creature was telepathic, he didn't want to tip them off Bernice had found a way to plant a falsehood into whatever intelligence they had gotten out of her to get this close. So long as they thought they could use her again, she had value to them. It was a shot in the dark, the hope she was still alive, but he had to take it.

The front door smashed in. Shouting.

"The _real _Bernice would have never have tried to seduce me after telling me she had been violated," Steve hissed.

He swung the strange-looking metal sculpture at the creatures head.

Bullets rang. One after another.

The creature shrieked and looked towards the bedroom door. Bullets could only wound it. Not kill it. It lurched towards Clint, the greater threat.

Steve's blade continued down. It wasn't a particularly sharp weapon, designed for show and not real combat. But whoever had ground this strange-looking blade, they had taken great care to sharpen the four antler-like prongs into sharp points. It ground through the creature's neck, like a steak knife, instead of cleaved it off like a sword. But it _did _cut straight through, aided by Steve's adrenaline and natural strength.

"Steve!" Clint was unable to fit into the tiny room with the flailing shape shifter blocking the entry.

Now blind without its head attached, the creature alternated between snapping wildly at him and Clint, not dying as had happened the _last _time he had tangled with a shape shifter. The head was not the brain center of these creatures. It must be someplace in the middle. Like a starfish, shape shifters could be cut in half several times before the pieces grew too small to regenerate any longer. There was only one way to kill it. To hack the goddamned thing apart.

"Keep shooting!" Steve shouted.

Behind Clint, Thor shoved past and landed a blow with Mjolnir. Banner shouted in the background, giving directions about how he thought the thing could be killed.

"There is no room … to movest … in thy … quarters," Thor complained between blows.

An exploding arrowhead would blow _all _of them to smithereens, along with half of the apartment building. Clint yanked a hunting knife out of its sheath and began to dismember the creature with _that _instead.

Steve glanced to where Banner stood in the narrow doorway. His eyes had developed that green ring they all knew meant trouble. The Hulk would have no problem dispatching this creature. Problem was, he would take down the rest of the building and half the neighborhood along with it. Behind Banner, SHIELD agents rushed inside. The apartment was _filled _with agents, but with no room to maneuver, they were trapped in the tiny bedroom, leaping back and forth onto the bed like naughty children to avoid the shape shifter who clawed at them blindly.

"Small pieces," Steve shouted, hacking the creature apart into smaller and smaller chunks. The others followed suit, Thor smashing and Clint slicing. Steve kept slicing away with the metal sculpture. Whatever it was, it made a fine weapon.

At last the creature fell to the ground, twitching as it died. They continued cutting. And cutting. And cutting. Until the thing was cut into such small pieces there was no way it was pulling itself back together. Even then, the damned pieces kept twitching. But it was over.

He stood there, hand across the stitches that screamed in protest at the abuse he had put them to tonight, panting to catch his breath.

"Dude," Clint asked. "Where's your clothes?"

Steve looked down and realized he wore nothing but the creature's blood. Had any part of his face been visible beneath the gore, the others would have seen him blush. He grabbed the gory bathrobe the creature had shredded before luring him into bed and wrapped it around his waist, ashamed. Would they think he had…

"What happened here?" Nick Fury's voice boomed from the entrance to the apartment.

"We were getting ready to go to sleep, Sir." Steve said. "It waited until it thought my guard was down. And then it attacked."

"Where did you get the Klingon blade?" Bruce Banner asked, pointing at the strange metal sculpture Steve held in his hands.

"It belongs to Bernice," Steve said. He pointed to the spot on the wall that had pictures of spaceships and a picture of a dark-skinned man with a wrinkled forehead and yellow uniform signed 'Worf.'

The others laughed. Whatever the joke was, he did not get it. But he was grateful his wife had possessed something he had been able to use as a weapon.

Bernice.

She was still alive. He was certain of it. Only Bernice could have given the creature such tiny details as the place where they had gotten married, and yet slip in a piece of innocuous sounding _misinformation _only someone who knew him well might hope would tip him off that the shape shifter who had assumed her form was not really her.

"What made you come after me?" Steve asked.

"The toxicology screen," Banner said. "When I looked at the blood sample under a microscope, I realized the blood cells had begun to break down. Blood cells die shortly after removal, but they don't begin to decompose until they've been out of the body for at least a day. The shape shifter must have taken a sample of Bernice's blood, tainted with the sedative, and embedded it in the spot it knew I would take a blood sample."

Steve nodded, grateful they had cared enough to keep looking. The shape shifter had known exactly what psychological buttons to push to get him to override debrief protocol and whisk her out of there. Just as the puppet master in the American Radiator Building had known how to taunt him. He didn't care how long it took or how many mountains he had to move to find his wife again, but he was going to find her! Pausing in the apartment only long enough to shower off the gore and borrow a tyvek hazmat suit from one of the SHIELD cleanup crew members so he would not be naked, he headed out the door with the other Avengers to start shaking down some cages.

X

_Don't forget I post extras on both Facebook and Google+ The links are:_

_(replace +dot+ with '.' and close up spaces):_

_ : / / plus +dot+ google +dot+ c o m / stream / circles / p56cc32ea8f259af9_

_w w w +dot+ facebook +dot+ c o m / pages / Anna-Erishkigal / 203837383044945?ref=hl_

_Images posted: Bat'leth, Chitauri shape shifter._

_Soundtrack: Shadow of the Wolf - Nox Arcana_

_Don't forget to leave a review in the little box below. Love it. Hate it. Drop me a line! _


	64. Chapter 64

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Courtney, AoiKuroNekoSan, RipplesOfAqua, LEPrecon, Jelsemium, Neko Tiger, Qweb, Cotton Strings, TrickPhotography, Kelly Jo, Arrows the Wolf, AndieGibbs09, Katya Jade, Beloved Daughter, blown-transistor, LoLoLaLoco, Penny Tortoiseshell, spiffymac0617, ladymoonsoar, Adamantium Rose, **__and __**Mystewitch.**_

_At __**LEPrecon **__... armor issues … resolved._

_At __**Kelly Jo **__… coat … mention she grabs it beforehand._

_Special thanks to people who caught brain-dead plot holes and errors They say it takes 14 pairs of eyes editing a story to make it good! Thanks everyone for reading!_

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Chapter 64

Steve glowered through the one-way glass of the holding area. Slow. Too slow. At the rate they were going, they wouldn't _ever _find Bernice. The sound of the doorway opening and shutting behind him did little to divert his intense concentration on every nuance of body language of the man responsible for kidnapping his wife.

"He's told us everything he knows," Nick Fury said.

Steve noted the frown on Fury's face. It was about as close as the fierce SHIELD director got to expressing sympathy.

"He knows more." Steve clamped down on the butterfly of fear which fluttered in his chest. "He _has _to know more."

The words were little more than wishful thinking and he knew it. Although Mike had vague recollections of his time as a human drone, he was even _less _aware of what his body had been doing while somebody else had been in the driver's seat than Jacquie had been. The only lead he had been able to give them was a secret room in a previously unknown sub-basement of the American Radiator building. They had found eight more 'beds' similar to the ones found in the cave in Ambryn and what appeared to be cryogenic freezers. All empty. Whoever had been detained there had been moved long before they had stormed the building. Decades ago they estimated by the amount of dust in the room.

"What about the old man?" Steve asked.

"It was the same technology we found in the Melanesian Island children," Fury said. "Only older. Whatever was done to the old man, it was done a very long time ago."

"Who was he? Really?"

"Jonathan Hart," Fury said. "Just like the name on the law firm said. Only, get this. Jonathan Hart was born in 1809. He was a fur trader in Sacramento in the 1830's and 1840's. When the California started an uprising to throw off the Mexican governors, he bought up land and made a killing when they found gold in 1845."

"So you're telling me the guy was over two hundred years old?"

"Do you find that so hard to believe?"

Cryo-chambers. For some reason, the Chitauri had kept the old guy on ice and pulled him out just in time to have Steve kill him. A drone who had outlived his usefulness now that the law firm the aliens had been using as a cover had been exposed. It both gave him hope … hope that Bernice was still alive … and despair … because the Chitauri had a history of killing off drones once they were done using them. Bernice would stay alive only so long as she could be used as a tool. He _had _to find out more.

"If I let you in the same room with him," Nick Fury asked. "Do you promise not to kill him?" By the raised eyebrow, Fury was serious.

Steve shut his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm the frantic clamoring of his heart to _do something._ Mike had been set up. A fall guy to push his buttons so the shape shifter could get close enough to jab him in the brain with the nanovirus. The aliens hadn't anticipated it would be the Hulk's alter-ego who would poke and prod the shape shifter impersonating Bernice, or that the other Avengers would stick around to babysit him once the raid had been completed. Where a normal medic would have simply given Bernice a perfunctory medical checkup and sent her home, Banner had started poking around her DNA. It was a level of scrutiny the shape shifters had not anticipated.

All because Jacquie had survived … and finally gotten them asking the right questions. He remembered the surprise in the shape shifters voice when he'd told her Jacquie was still alive … and how obsessed the creature had been about having _him _kill Mike. _Both _drones were supposed to die. They had survived because both had cast off control of the nanovirus which enabled the Chitauri to pull their strings. He remembered the way the other human drones had turned on the boy who'd been burned in the fire and suddenly woken up. Herr Kleiser's attempts, disguised as Natasha, to kill Count Rugen. The raid on the Triskelion to do the same thing. There was something the aliens didn't want them to find out. Something that would not be obvious during an autopsy by the way they left dead drones strewn in their wake, but might give them a way to counteract the alien invasion plans.

It all came back to the man in the observation room. And something Mike _did not know_ that he knew…

"In my head I know Mike was a victim," Steve answered honestly. "The same as Bernice and Jacquie. But in my heart … I can't make any promises."

The door opened and shut again. Steve glanced up to see Tony Stark. He handed Steve a piece of paper. A photocopy of an 11x17 inch drawing. Steve's hands trembled as he took it. The map! In his panic, he had forgotten Abraham Miller had a copy of the original map. Unedited. At least _all _was not lost.

"Abraham Miller dropped this off this morning," Tony said. "They saw the fire on the news and remembered that was the name of your gym. When he couldn't reach either you or Bernice by phone, he brought this by my office. He said you insisted he give it to nobody but me?" Stark's black eyes were filled with that same worried pity that Fury's were filled with. It was not very reassuring.

Steve's voice lowered to a mumble. "I haven't told them yet."

"I told him," Tony said. A muscle in his cheek twitched with one of the intense emotions Steve now knew forever lurked beneath the cocky playboy exterior. "He said … he said to just get her back. They're going to hold you personally responsible if anything bad happens to her."

Bad? As in … what? Worse than being kidnapped by shape shifting aliens? This was bigger than him. But thanks to Abraham Miller, at least they had a map of doors to start kicking down. He handed the map to Nick Fury.

"You gave this to me already," Fury said. "I've already dispatched agents to double-check the empty bases, but so far we've come up empty handed."

Steve glanced over at his old nemesis, the playboy-billionaire-genius-philanthropist. Somewhere along the way, he had begun to think of the man as his friend. A competitive friend. A _very _competitive friend-like co-worker who he almost always disagreed with, but knew he could count on when the chips were down. Okay … maybe they didn't disagree _all _the time, but when they did, it was usually a doozy. By the twitch of Tony Stark's cheek, Steve knew he had already figured out there were far more locations on the map than the sanitized version Steve had given when he had feared they had a mole in their midst.

"Not _these _locations," Steve said. He pointed to nearly three dozen more 'x' marks in various locations around the world. All x-marks he had painstakingly whited out and re-photocopied before handing the sanitized version in to SHIELD.

"You _know _policy dictates I'm supposed to forward this immediately to the Pentagon," Fury said.

"And you know what will happen if you do," Tony said. "The Capsicle knew what he was doing when he only gave you what you needed to get the powers-that-be off their asses."

"Shit!" Fury immediately recognized several were located within the boundaries of the United States. All of them active volcanos. "Why didn't you give this to me earlier?"

"Are you kidding me?" Tony Stark said. "You doubt him when he tells you something's not right about Natasha. Then you bust him down to latrine duty and keep him in the dark about the whole Yasur volcano mission. And now you want him to trust you?"

Steve glanced at Tony Stark with surprise. Tony gave him an intense look. Steve shut his mouth. Stark had been the first person to side with him about the Natasha imposter. He'd warned him when he'd first been recruited into SHIELD to never trust the government. Steve had taken issue with that comment and immediately been made a fool of. Stark had been around the block too many times with presidents and petty tyrants to have any idealism left when it came to men of power.

"I've got to get this to somebody I trust," Fury said. He shot Tony Stark his infamous hairy eyeball. "Steve is about to go in and question the ex-boyfriend. Babysit him for me like a good boy, okay?"

Tony Stark's eyes sparkled with mischief as he shot Fury a look that could be interpreted as 'yeah … right.' He stretched and cracked his knuckles. By Fury's subtle nod, it was understood that 'babysit' meant 'nothing that can come back on me later.' No sooner had the door closed behind Fury than Tony shot him a grin.

"Good cop, bad cop?"

"Only if I get to play the bad cop." Steve had grown up devouring the tough detective fiction heroes popularized by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Tony Stark gestured towards the door to the interrogation room, a 'you first' expression on his face. Steve hesitated.

"Tony?"

"Yeah."

"How come you never told the others Bernice and I had gotten married until I went missing?"

Tony gave him wistful smile. He lifted up his shirt. The blue glow of the arc reactor lit up the dimly lit observation room. On the left hand side of the device, a small round washer was embedded into it. Tony pulled it out of the socket which had obviously been created to house it and slipped it onto his left hand ring finger.

"A wedding ring?

"Pepper and I were married a few weeks after Vanko tried to blow up the Stark Expo," Stark said. He glanced at the ring, a look of pride on his face.

"You and Pepper are married?" _Of course _they were married. He'd seen the way Tony hovered, the act of an arrogant playboy gone the moment the six-foot redhead stepped into the room.

"My life has always been so public." He grimaced and looked up at the ceiling, his eyes focused on some event in his past. "Pepper is a very private person. She hates making a spectacle of herself for any reason. Privacy is the one gift I can't buy for her. So we got married and didn't tell anyone. It keeps the paparazzi guessing. And it gives my enemies pause. I mean … if I really cared about her, I would marry her, right?"

Tony slipped the ring off of his finger, gave it a kiss, and put it back where it belonged. Right next to his heart. He pulled down his shirt to cover the arc reactor and pointed to the young man, technically in biological years a few years _older _than Steve was, now sitting alone in the interrogation room.

"Let's go find out what this asshole _really _knows…"

Not needing a second invitation, Steve took a page out of the _'Bucky Barnes school of bailing Steve's butt out of a back alley'_ and stalked into the room to give Mike the shake down. The moment Steve stepped in the door, Mike stood up, instinctively knowing what was coming.

"I have the right to make one phone call!" Mike protested, glancing at the two-way mirror. "You can't hold me here. I'll sue you for everything you own."

"You've been classified as an enemy combatant." Tony stepped in behind him, right at Steve's back. "You have the rights we give to you. No more."

Steve noted the surprised look of recognition on Mike's face at seeing Iron Man, in the flesh. As the only superhero without a secret identity, only a corpse would be clueless who he was. The fact Stark also happened to be Bernice's boss must have made the revelation all the more bittersweet.

"Still think I'm with … what was that terrorist organizations name again, Tony?"

"Al Qaida."

"Al Quada." Steve stepped up to the table. "Still think I'm a terrorist."

Mike's pupils dilated with fear. Steve had made a special point of putting on his battle armor before watching the interrogation. Just in case…

"Y-y-you don't exist," Mike stuttered. "I looked into your background. You stole some dead soldier's identity."

Steve put his hand down on the table, the cold steel soaking up into his bones. He had to remind himself that what the shape shifter had said Mike had done to his wife to toy with his emotions was not true. But the bastard had _still _lured Bernice and Jacquie into a trap. He normally wasn't one to throw his weight around, but just this once...

"You kidnapped my _wife!" _

He slammed his fist down upon the steel table, crushing it in half like it was made of soft copper sheeting. His fist left an imprint in the steel, right at the juncture of the fold. Mike leaped back, his back against the wall.

"Th-th-this is police brutality!" Mike winced as Steve threw the table to one side and stepped towards him. "You're violating my civil rights. I can have you … I can … I can sue the department … or something." His voice trailed off into a whisper.

Steve stepped into Mike's personal space, towering over him by a good seven inches. The low growl which rumbled in his chest was not for show. Only a lifetime spent channeling his anger into more productive avenues of dispute resolution than initiating fist fights his then-skinny frame had little chance of winning prevented him from snapping Mike's neck. The shape shifters had counted on him reacting like any _other _soldier whose wife had been kidnapped and raped, familiar with their _own _experiments with the increased aggression caused by the super soldier serum, to remove Mike from the equation during the raid as had happened with the old man. Now, as in then, they had underestimated Doctor Erskine's caution in ensuring only the most worthy recipients would receive his variant of the serum.

"That's assuming you live long enough to sue." Tony leaned back against the two-way mirror and nonchalantly rubbed his nails against his tee shirt, pretending to scrutinize his manicure. "Personally … every man in this facility is going to swear you never made it into custody."

Mike gulped. He looked so insignificant standing there, this selfish little man who had once broken Bernice's heart. Perspiration beaded on Mike's brow, his hand trembling as he tugged at his collar.

"Where is she?"

"I already told you," Mike whimpered. "I don't know where they took her."

Steve grabbed Mike's collar with two hands and picked him up so they were eye to eye.

"Then you'd better tell us everything you _do _know. Because if we don't find her, there's not a force in this universe that is going to prevent me from tearing you apart limb by limb like I just did to that Chitauri bastard you set up to take Bernice's place."

"I-I-I had n-n-nothing to do with that," Mike stammered. "Please! You've got to believe me. I only wanted to help her!"

"Let me get this straight?" Tony strutted back and forth in front of the two-way mirror, pausing to tuck a stray hair back into place before speaking businessman to businessman. "You dump the poor girl at the altar because she no longer furthers your big career plans. But then you hear she landed a job at _my _company as my personal concept artist. Bernice can give you an _in _to land a big fish client for your law firm, so you figure you'll sweep her off her feet again just long enough to get that intro, and then decide from there whether or not she fits into your career plans. How am I doing so far?"

Mike's mouth opened and shut like a fish. Steve looked at Tony with surprise. Talk about a ruthless, cynical bastard! Tony, that was. Steve had seen all kinds of evil back in 1945, but the way Tony saw straight to the core of Mike's motivations and put them so succinctly made even _him _go 'aha!' Jeepers! Did Stark always see _everything _this clearly? No wonder the man was always such a jerk!

Mike tried to wriggle out of Steve's grasp. His midsection felt like it was going to split open and spill his guts onto the floor from the strain of holding the 185 pound Mike up in the air, but he'd be _damned _if he'd show his adversary any weakness. Especially when Tony was doing such a good job of playing the role of the good cop. Good cop/bad cop only worked if the bad cop did a convincing job of intimidating the witness. Steve clenched the weasel tighter and shifted his weight higher so the pressure was on his shoulders instead of his damaged core.

"Only there's something you didn't know," Tony's cheek twitched. "Bernice didn't _need _you to be her hero anymore. Because she'd caught the eye of a _real _hero. A _super _hero. The most selfless soldier to ever walk the earth. Unlike the rest of us assholes who only do this to feed our own hubris. It goaded you that she didn't want anything to do with you anymore. Didn't it?"

Steve twisted Mike's collar, squeezing his supply of air. Mike's eyeballs bulged out of his head, the whites almost obscuring the pupils.

"Yes," Mike squeaked.

"So you figured you'd go digging into Steve's cover and see if there wasn't something you could dig up to make him back off," Tony said. "And when you didn't find any skeletons, you assumed you could just throw your money around until the guy got fed up with being harassed and dumped her?"

"N-n-n…"

Steve slammed him against the wall. Just a little. Not too hard. Actually, this wasn't really getting him anywhere and he'd never been one to bully people. But Stark seemed to be enjoying himself. And at this point, it wasn't like he had any _other _leads to track down where the aliens had taken Bernice.

"Yes!" Mike yelped. "I admit it! I figured I could make up a bunch of bullshit and scare the guy off. But when I started digging and came up empty, I got scared. I really _did _think he was Al Qaida or something. That's why I got the law firm involved."

"I don't recall that coming out during the interrogation," Steve said. "Tell me more about the law firm's involvement."

"The firm has these guys who look into things," Mike said. "We call them _fixers._ Guys that look into stuff and make people's problems go away. After the cops told my private detective to piss off, I asked the fixers to look into things."

"Fixers?" Steve asked.

"I know what they are." Tony had a dark, intense look in his eyes. "What did these fixers do for you?"

"I don't know," Mike said. "All I know is that a few days later my boss calls me into his office and asks me about some irregularities in my billing sheets. The only way I could get the company fixers to look into things was by pretending it was a client who needed you exposed. Not me. So I lied. I told them I thought you were part of the Zionist movement the senior partners are always so paranoid about."

"You didn't tell any of this to the interrogator," Steve hissed.

"He didn't ask!"

"What happened next?" Tony asked.

"The next day, word comes down from on high that Mr. Hart has suddenly made an appearance after a 90 year absence. The guy's got to be over a hundred, right? We all figured it was BS. Some descendant keeping Hart's name on the letterhead because that's the way law firms always work. But he calls me up to his office, asks me the exact same questions _you _did, and then tells me I'm being promoted. Except … he's not _old. _He's the exact same age as _you. _And he looks like you. Not exact. But close enough I figure he must be a disgruntled relative. Only instead of taking me to the corner office, they take me down into that room in the basement I told the interrogator about."

Steve nodded. The room had been found … and searched. There had been more equipment Stark's engineers would spend years figuring out, but no sign of Bernice. _Or _clues about what the Chitauri were up to.

"Where can we find these fixers?" Tony asked.

"Um … they were affiliated with the firm," Mike said. "Only … outside of it. Plausible deniability and all that stuff. Real cold bastards. Big guys. Tall. Like you. Their faces, though? They were like … stiff."

"Stiff?"

"Like they didn't have any emotion," Mike said. "They had me represent some real nasty clients at that law firm. Mafioso and a few henchmen for South American dictators. But I've never seen anybody as cold as _these _guys."

Steve's eyes met Tony's across the room, indicating they both had the same thought. Another nest of shape shifters?

"Tell us where to find these fixers?" Steve asked.

Mike spilled his guts. Where he had met them. How the firm contacted them. Where he suspected they normally hung out. Weird character traits which made them more and more certain these 'fixers' were shape shifters. Tony drilled him on how many law offices and affiliated partner businesses the firm was plugged into. There were a number of employees that sounded like they might be either shape shifters or drones. How many of these Chitauri bastards were walking around on Earth, anyways?

"Stand down, Fido," Tony Stark snapped his fingers. "I think Bernice's fake friend has given us enough information. For now."

"Stay away from my wife," Steve growled. "I'll leave it up to _her _once I get her back whether or not I get to snap your neck."

He was glad to finally let go of Mike Farrel's throat. The reality of putting the sniveling weasel back into his place was far less satisfying than the fantasy had been. Acting like a bully just wasn't in Steve's nature. Like it or not, although not innocent as Jacquie had been, Mike was also a victim.

"You look like shit," Tony said as soon as the door shut behind him. "Where are you staying?"

"Don't know," Steve said. He glanced back at the doorway, where _new _interrogators were getting ready to debrief Mike Farrel even _further _about the new information they had brought to light. "I'm not sure which lead we should follow up first."

"Let _me _take care of that," Tony said. "You've been up for the last two nights. Go someplace and get some rest. Pepper had them ready one of the guest suites on the 102nd floor. She even ordered up some pajamas so you don't have to sleep in the buff. Unless you want to."

By the evil grin on Tony Stark's face, he'd heard about Steve's naked fight to the death with the shape shifter in Bernice's apartment.

"I might take you up on that offer later," Steve said. "But I promised Jacquie I'd go back and get her some things. She's going to be detained until they figure out how to undo what was done to her so some passing shape shifter doesn't just have to give the kill command."

Tony gave him a sympathetic nod. They both knew it was not for Jacquie's clothes he was going back to the old apartment, but because it was the closest he could come to being with his kidnapped wife.

"I'll alert the doorman to give you entry any time you want," Tony said. "Pepper will be hurt if you don't show up. At the very least, it will give you a few changes of clothes. Just do me a favor and make a token appearance for her."

"Gotcha," Steve said.

Parting ways, Steve made his way to the evidence processing area to retrieve a certain item before bringing it to the closest place he had left to a home.

X

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	65. Chapter 65

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Arrows the Wolf, Cotton Strings, Neko Tiger, Adamantium Rose, Seko, Mystewitch, Courtney, AndieGibbs09, Qweb, Katya Jade, Jelsemium, Beloved Daughter, **__and __**LoLoLaLoco.**_

_FYI - for anyone who wondered, I dropped hints when Steve and Bernice first got married that Tony was teasing Steve about it, but for some reason wasn't telling the others. That reason was because he understood why Steve might want to keep things to himself. It was a breadcrumb dropped some chapters back that I had meant to weave in sooner, but didn't get around to it until now._

_Thanks everyone for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 65

Steve stared at the yellow tape barring the inner door. _Do not cross._ He ripped off just enough to slip the key into the lock and get inside. The scent of disinfectant assailed his nostrils. The cleanup crew had done a good job of eradicating all signs of what had happened here, but the apartment still had the uneasy feel of a crime scene. The window was open, the frigid December air chilling the lingering scent of death.

The carpet had been removed, as had the door to her bedroom. With creatures that could regenerate, the crew had erred on the side of caution and seized anything with genetic matter from the shape shifter on it. Steve stared at what was left of Bernice's old bedroom. The bed was gone. The carpet was gone. Large swaths of plaster, including the ceiling, had been scraped off of the wall. Her bureau was gone. Her pictures of space ships and the autographed picture of the movie star were gone, as were the items he had tripped on while fighting for his life. Dismemberment was a bloody process. There was little left in the room that had _not _been splattered with gore.

The hand that held the Klingon Bat'leth trembled, the metal sculpture a shield against the misery that threatened to consume him. Gone. All gone. Bernice had already moved her most needed personal effects to their apartment above the gym, leaving only furniture and items she didn't immediately need behind until he could help her move them. He hung the Bat'leth upon its hook, the instrument looking as forlorn and out of place as he felt with no pictures around it to give it context.

A pile of boxes had been left in one corner, things she had packed up for the move to the gym which had been protected by an outer layer of boxes. Wooden slats that had once held plaster taunted him, reminding him of the gutted church where he had learned tales of a loving god who _cared _about people. He felt like Job, having everything he had ever loved taken away from him until he had nothing left but anger at a god who would make him the subject of a wager with the devil. Not just once … but twice.

His hands shook as he opened the boxes, all that he had left of her. Summer clothing. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled. It smelled of laundry detergent. He tore through one box after another, not knowing what he was looking for. His search became almost frantic, a crushing feeling in his chest as he looked for something he could not name. At last he found it, not packed into one of the boxes, but stuffed into a bag marked 'cleaning rags.'

He lifted the old flannel pajamas to his nose, his hands trembling as he inhaled the familiar blend of Lux soap and the light musky scent that was his wife. She had been wearing these pajamas when he'd appeared at her door, wounded and still wearing his battle armor, and told her that he'd loved her. For some reason, despite the stains from his blood and gore he'd had on his armor that night, she had washed these pajamas and worn them again. Probably for the same reason _he _had gone back looking for them now. It was the only thing he had left to prove their love had not been a myth.

_Bernice…_

At last he let go and allowed the tears to flow that he'd been keeping at bay ever since Jacquie-drone had uttered the terrible words that she'd been taken.

X

He awoke, disoriented, unable to see in the dark. Where was he? The scent of the soft flannel clutched to his heart brought back the terrible nightmare that was his life. He wanted to crawl back into the pleasant dream he'd been having of the two of them asleep in each other's arms, floating in an icy peacefulness which tried to shield them. He wanted to go back there. Oh, god! How he wanted to crawl back into that glacier and do nothing but sleep! But the next time he embraced Eternity, he would do it with his wife.

He found the light switch and flipped it on. Six-thirty. It only _felt _late, his exhaustion from lingering injuries and two days without sleep making it feel as though it were three in the morning. He resumed his search, moving into the larger apartment which Jacquie had begun to claim.

Bernice had brought her photo albums and sketch books to the gym, a loss Steve knew could never be replaced. But he found one by the painting she had left behind, the one that had fallen out of her portfolio the first day he had bumped into her. He flipped through page after page of sketches of whatever had caught her fancy. A squirrel in a park. A building with a gothic, fantasy feel to it. Dragons and knights in shining armor. Jacquie … with pointy ears and fairy wings. He traced each line, drawn with such care, his artists fingertips noting the weight of the paper and each bump of a colored pencil.

There were more pictures. Her father, bent over his computer, his angular features exaggerated to make him look like a gnome. Pictures of Peggy, at 93, the eyes that looked out at him from the page filled with wisdom. Old men and women he recognized as residents from the nursing home, each sketch capturing some facet of their personality. Everything Bernice drew had a life about it, as though it were about to step out of the page. Steve had been a passably decent artist in his day, his skills as a graphic designer always in demand to create the art deco advertisements popular in his era. But Bernice was a master.

He turned the page and found a picture of himself, bent down to pick up some pictures strewn about a grey tiled floor. Somehow, she had captured his expression the first time he had looked into her eyes and seen her resemblance to Peggy. Longing … and grief. Did he wear that same expression now? He thought so. Only it was not Peggy he grieved for now, but the granddaughter she had coaxed in his direction. Peggy had understood Bernice could give him something she had never been able to give. Unconditional love. Unlike Peggy, Bernice had seen him as perfect from the first moment she had laid eyes upon him.

It was all a lie!

He flipped through the rest of the pictures, a sketch of him seated talking to Peggy, their heads pressed together conspiratorially like two best friends. Many other images which had sparked Bernice's imagination, some of them realistic, others embellished with fantastical features. A picture of him standing next to Pepper Potts. He turned to the last picture and paused.

_She never told me she was there that day…_

Him. Kneeling at the side of Peggy's open grave in his World War II dress uniform. His shoulders bent in sorrow as he threw the engagement ring he had never had a chance to give her into the grave. He hadn't seen her, but it made sense that she had stayed behind to say goodbye. She had come looking for him after he had failed to follow through on Peggy's dying wish to look her up because she had recognized, without understanding _why, _that his grief had been as profound as hers. An astute judge of character, Peggy had recognized Bernice was the perfect match for him. Thank god she had known him well enough to give her an excuse to find him after she was dead, knowing full well he was too shy around women to initiate contact on his own.

Such happiness she had given him…

Such grief he felt right now. If he had thought losing Peggy was bad, it was nothing compared to the pain of losing his wife.

He had no tears left to shed. Snapping shut the sketch pad, he gathered the things he had promised Jacquie he would get for her, loaded them into the Excursion, and went back to retrieve Bernice's art work. The Bat'leth sat forlornly on the wall. There was no place for _it _here, either. He had broken seventeen different protocols to expedite it out of the evidence processing area. He would sharpen it into a _real _weapon and use it to saw the head off of the next Chitauri bastard he came across.

Grabbing the Bat'leth, he stuffed her pajamas into a bag to preserve her scent and headed out for the next stop on his agenda. It was time to pay the piper.

X

It was a typical New Jersey starter home in one of the identical tracts which had cropped up after the war. 8:30 p.m. There were several cars parked in the driveway. Steve had walked into countless battle situations where he had not been certain he would survive, but the fear he had felt then was _nothing _compared to the dread he felt now as he stepped up to Bernice's father's door and rang the doorbell. Not only had he eloped with Taavi Rosenthal's daughter, not even having the decency to ask him for his daughter's hand in marriage as he had done with her uncle, but then he had never thrown the wedding reception she deserved so that her family could get to know him. He was a stranger. And he was the bastard responsible for the kidnapping of his daughter.

The door opened. A tear-stained face peeped out, her features so like Bernice's it made it difficult for him to speak. Naomi. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, making her appear much younger than her seventeen years.

"Steve?"

"Is your father home?"

"He's in the basement," Naomi said. She opened the door wide. "Please. Come inside."

Steve stepped inside the door.

"I'll go tell my father that you're here," Naomi said. She left him standing in the living room, the sound of voices filtering up from the basement as she clattered down the stairs.

Steve drank in this home where Bernice had grown up. The place had an air of benevolent neglect about it, the furnishings dated and worn. On the mantle, a picture of a woman surrounded by three smiling children caught his attention. Bernice's mother. Peggy's granddaughter. The woman had an even _stronger _resemblance to Peggy than Bernice did, including that fiery temper he'd often seen in Peggy's eyes which Bernice only occasionally manifested. He could see why Taavi had been devastated after his wife's loss. It was a feeling Steve knew only too well, although at least _he _still had hope.

The sound of slippers shuffling against the floorboards announced Naomi was back. She gestured towards the kitchen, which looked dated even though the cabinets would have been cutting edge décor back in his own time, and guided him to the basement steps. She did not follow, but left him to find his own way down the dimly lit stairwell, his footfalls echoing in the musty basement. A group of men clustered around Bernice's father, staring at a computer screen.

"Doctor Nyi?" Steve recognized Bernice's boss as soon as he turned to face him. "Abraham? Caleb." And three other men he had never met.

"Doctor Nyi's father is an old family friend," Abraham said. "I asked him to stop by after work to fill us in on what little they know. We were … we knew you would want to spend your time looking for her. Not answering questions."

From the look of anger and grief on Taavi Rosenthal's face, Abraham was glossing over a great deal. They had thought he would not make the time to come. If not for his _own _overwhelming need to share his grief with _somebody, _even if those somebodies were people who blamed him for her loss, perhaps he might have chickened out and not come at all?

"We have some leads," Steve said.

Taavi hesitated, then stood up to shake his hand.

"So. You're the man who married my daughter."

"Yes, Sir."

An awkward silence.

"Perhaps if would help if you showed him," Doctor Nyi said.

Steve frowned. He had no idea _what _he was supposed to show them.

"Yes!" Anger tinged Taavi's voice. "I would like to see for myself what was so important that you couldn't stop by and introduce yourself as my new son-in-law."

Abraham rubbed his own stomach. It appeared Tony Stark had filled the patriarch of the Miller clan in on a lot more than the fact Bernice had been kidnapped. Steve unbuttoned the black SHIELD uniform shirt he had borrowed from another agent and pulled up the t-shirt underneath, exposing his scars.

"Shit!" Bernice's brother Caleb turned pale. "Doctor Nyi wasn't kidding when he said you'd been gutted like a fish."

"I was released from Walter Reed a few days ago," Steve said. "I'm _still _supposed to be confined to bed rest, though that's not working out so well. Bernice was meeting her friend Jacquie to buy a wedding dress so we could hold a _proper _ceremony when she was taken."

In fact, the strain he'd put on his body the last few days was taking its toll. Banner had prognosticated his abdominal muscles should have knit back together by now, but his rate of healing had slowed down the last couple of days to that of any other human. It seemed his super metabolism _could _be taxed to a point where even _it _could no longer heal. Truth be told, all he wanted to do right now was lay down. Everything the others said sounded far away, his heart pounding in his ears as if begging him to listen to it break. It seemed as though everything he looked at was through a looking glass. The images distorted and reversed from what he thought reality _should _be. But he had come because he felt Bernice's family deserved better than to be told second-hand. No matter _how _exhausted he felt.

"You were _supposed _to report to Stark Towers and get some rest," Doctor Nyi said. "You look like you're about to fall over. How are you going to get back your wife if you're too injured to fight?"

"There's no way I'm going to get any sleep," Steve said softly. "Not until I find her. I can't…" He turned and feigned interest in a wave pattern that squiggled across the computer screen, swallowing until the sob that was stuck in his throat finally loosened up enough for him to talk again. When he turned back, Taavi's expression had turned to one of sympathy and sorrow. As a man who had lost his _own _wife, Bernice's father must have recognized his grief was genuine.

"Doctor Nyi was filling me in on a theory he had about how the shape shifters communicate," Taavi said. "Digital modes of communication are a hobby of mine. And theirs." He pointed to the three other men who had come to share the family's grief. "Why don't you let Caleb show you where Bernice's old room is? That way, if we need you, we can wake you."

"Does SHIELD know how to reach you?" Doctor Nyi asked.

Steve wordlessly held out the cell phone they had given him before he had left. One of those new smart phones. They had tried starting him out on one, but until Bernice had taught him how to use a regular cell phone, the technology had been too intimidating. Now … he still fumbled with it, but at least he could answer calls.

"C'mon." Caleb led him up two flights of stairs to a tiny bedroom that sat under the eaves of the cape-style roof. "Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"That you're really Captain America?"

Steve was so exhausted that all he could muster was a shrug.

"That's so awesome," Caleb said.

He prattled on a couple of minutes about where the bathroom and towels could be found, and then left Steve to get some rest. Although Bernice had not lived in this house for more than four years, nobody had bothered to clean out her things, leaving everything the way it must have been when she had still lived in this room in high school. Sketches and posters of movie stars adorned every square inch of wall. The slanted ceiling was so low he could only stand upright in the very center of the room.

It didn't matter. All that mattered was that, at last, he could feel that connection to her that had been stolen from every other place she had ever inhabited. Pausing just long enough to take off his boots, he crawled under the covers of her narrow bed, his feet hanging off by a good six inches, and curled up around a dilapidated black stuffed cat with a missing eye. He pretended it was _her _that he held, as if he could reach across that icy darkness and hold her wherever they had taken her. In his mind, it felt almost _real._

He was asleep before a second thought could cross his mind.

X

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	66. Chapter 66

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**LEPrecon, AioKuroNekoSan, Courtney, Neko Tiger, Adamantium Rose, Kelly Jo, Qweb, Mystewitch, Penny Tortoiseshell, Beloved Daughter, Katya Jade, Tante, **__and __**LoLoLaLoco.**_

_Special thanks to __**Adamantium Rose **__for pointing out some grammatical/flow issues. All fixed now. _

_At __**Kelly Jo**__ … I plead the fifth…_

_Remember everyone, critical feedback __**-is- **__welcome here! Clunky sentences, Mary Sue characters, characters acting out-of-character, plot holes and untenable situations … if people read my bio you'll see I view storytelling to be an interactive experience. Some of people's feedback from early in the story have unwound in later chapters. _

_Thanks everyone for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 66

_The Hydra agent stepped through the door, right into the railroad car they were trying to storm. Steve yanked the shield off his back and stepped in front of Bucky, preventing them from being turned to ash. Blue weapons fire erupted from the two strange guns. The ray bounced off the shield and dissolved the wall, slamming Steve against the wall. His shield went flying, far beyond his reach. The Hydra agent aimed at where he lay breathless upon the floor, defenseless without his shield._

_He was about to die. Bucky had never really adjusted to the fact that it was now -Steve- who was supposed to protect -him- and not the other way around. They were two kids from Brooklyn who had always stood together against the world. Bucky got that dark look he'd gotten every time he'd found Steve in a back alley, getting the stuffing kicked out of him because he'd never known when to back down from a fight. Despite his small size, it had always been Steve who had rushed first into danger, and Bucky who had always bailed him out._

"No!" Steve shouted.

_Bucky scrambled forward on his hands and knees. He grabbed Steve's shield and shot the Hydra agent, rising to his feet and stepping between Steve and certain death. He fired a second time, mortally wounding the agent. The agent fired back. The impact of the ray gun hitting the shield tossed Bucky through the hole in the wall as though he were a rag doll. The shield clamored on the floor like a spinning top._

"Bucky!"

_Steve caught his breath and forced his body to move, rushing towards the open wall. Bucky clung to the side of the train, holding on for dear life. Time. There was still time. All he needed was time to figure out how to get Bucky back into the train._

"Hang on!"

_He grabbed a piece of twisted metal and used it as a handhold to climb out to the exterior of the train. The wind rushed past, stealing his words. Bucky's grip was tenuous, his legs dangling over the edge of the cliff the tracks had been cut into as the wind tried to tear him off. _

_"Steve!"_

"Just hold on! I'll come get you!"

_Bucky nodded. There was a look of terror in those dark eyes which had always looked to Steve to be his moral compass. Bucky had always been the muscle of their dynamic duo, the voice which spoke and was heard whenever someone sloughed Steve off because he'd been born puny and weak, while Steve had always been the heart and mind. Just because Steve now had the strength to act as his -own- superman had not changed the fact that Bucky was his shield against a hostile world. The man he could count on, no matter what, to always watch his back. Without each other, they were incomplete._

_Bucky's grip slipped on the icy bar, the winter chill causing his gloveless fingers to turn numb. The bar had been damaged by the explosion. Resignation registered in Bucky's dark eyes. He saw it … and knew there was no avoiding it now. But Steve refused to admit defeat. He crawled along the side of the train like an insect, feet digging into the grooves to keep his footing. There was a gap of four feet between the bar he clung to and the one coming unhinged from the side of the train. Time. All he needed was time, dammit, to figure out how to bridge that gap and Bucky would be safe._

"Give me your hand!" _Steve reached across the gap._

_The screws on the near end let go, leaving it attached on only one side. The bar slid down, knocking Bucky out of his reach. _

_"Steve!"_

_Bucky's grasp was slipping. Steve grabbed a piece of shrapnel, a foolish, reckless risk, trying to get closer. He could hear the metal bar Bucky clung to protest, metal twisting against metal acting as a lever. He reached for him, his fingers falling inches short. For as long as he lived, Steve would never forget the look of terror in Bucky's eyes as he stared into the maw of death and knew he wasn't going to make it._

_The screws let go._

_Almost as though it were in slow motion, Bucky plunged into the gorge, the bar tumbling end over end behind him as though it were the seconds hand of a clock, marking the seconds until Bucky met his death. He watched his best friend fall and fall and fall, never hitting the bottom of the gorge. The chasm turned dark. An ominous presence. Malevolent. Intelligent. Ruthless. Death had taken Bucky. And now it wanted -him.-_

_No. He would not let death defeat him. Sobbing, he crawled back into the train and retrieved his shield, determined to complete the mission._

"Hey … his skin is burning up. Shouldn't we give him some water or something?"

"Bernice?"

"No. It's Naomi. I think he's delirious or something."

"Doctor Nyi said to leave him alone and let him sleep."

"He keeps shouting and mumbling something about Nazi's. If that's not delirious, I don't know what is."

"Bernice?"

"Did you see that scar on his gut? It's wicked gross."

"Dad told me to stay upstairs, remember?'

The two voices sounded far away, as though they were filtering through a fog. Some part of his consciousness registered light streaming through the window, but a larger part of him wanted to climb back into the horrible dream and try again. To try and get it _right _this time so he did not lose his best friend to Death.

"Caleb! Naomi! Leave him alone! You heard what Doctor Nyi said. His body needs sleep to regenerate."

"We were just checking on him!"

"Both of you … out!"

Scurried footsteps. There was a soft 'whir' of a shade being lowered. The room grew dark once more. Steve tried to force his mind out of the darkness nipping the edge of his conscious mind and mumbled something about needing to get up.

"The surest way to get my daughter back is to make sure that souped-up metabolism of yours heals your body," Taavi Rosenthal said. "Sleep. I'll come wake you if we need you."

The darkness that had taken Bucky made Steve feel as though he had a lead blanket over his mind. He cracked open his eyes, which did not want to _see _anything except the darkness which was forever trying to take him. He understood now that it was a _different _darkness than the peaceful coolness of the ice.

"They took her to get to _me_."

Steve felt a reassuring hand on his arm.

"Mr. Stark has asked me to collaborate with Doctor Nyi. Bernice proposed a theory … something about ham radio and dolphins. And to think all these years I thought my talk of band widths and radio frequencies put my daughter to sleep!"

"I should get up." He _meant _it. Problem was, his mind felt as though he had cotton stuffed between his ears and his body refused to obey.

"There are plenty of agents rattling cages. But there's only _one _guy who will knock down the gates of hell to get her back once we get a lead. So sleep. Naomi is going to stay home from school today in case you need anything."

"I'm sorry. We thought we'd gotten them all. We had no idea it was this big."

"We'll find her. And then you can bring her back so I can walk her down the aisle like a _proper _father should do."

Steve gave him a weak smile. His body was making him pay for putting it through its paces before it had fully healed. The ice beckoned, urging him to drift in that quiet place where Time and Death could not touch him. He needed to put his mind at rest so that his body could heal.

Curling back around the small stuffed cat that contained her scent, he drifted back to sleep before Taavi even left the room.

X

_"Steve."_

_He recognized his wife's mind, drifting in the quiet peacefulness of the ice along with him. He could not see her, but he could feel her presence all around him._

"Bernice?"

He reached to pull her into his arms. Some part of his consciousness registered a small, plush object. Not the feel of her body nestled against his. And yet he could feel her as though part of her were here.

"Where are you? I'll come get you."

_Water. Flowing around a rock. The whisper of voices, some carried along in the tide of Eternity like he was. Others trapped by Time, unable to shake off its grip._

_"If they find out that you can still think," Bernice whispered. "They kill you."_

"Where are you?"

_A plane. Hours passing by. The feel of being loaded into a van, blindfolded and bound. 'Do you have any fruit?' The road becoming bumpy. Hot. The van rising and falling as the vehicle wound its way through hilly terrain. The sound of the wind as she was carried inside._

_Another voice that seemed familiar._

_"They are coming!"_

_Water. Flowing around a rock. It carried her voice away._

The withdrawal of her mind felt like loss. All he could feel was the plush stuffed cat with her lingering scent clutched against his heart, hoping to shield it from his enemy. Time.

"Bernice." Tears streamed down his cheeks as he experienced losing her all over again.

_A kiss. Lips pressed against his forehead. A red-gloved hand touched his cheek. _

_"Are you going to just lay there? Or are you going to go get her?" _

_The scent was different this time. Lux soap. Just like Bernice liked to wear. But he would never mistake the differences in the scents of the two women he loved most in the world._

"Peggy?"

He opened his eyes, blinking against the setting sun which had shifted to stream directly in the window. She sat before him in a chair, as solid as though she were still alive, her winged helmet a peculiar juxtaposition against her red dress. He blinked again, his eyes adjusting to the light. The image shifted. A mirage. Conjured up by his grief-stricken mind.

"Are you really a superhero?"

The scent was no longer Lux soap, but a sporty scent that spoke of flowers and youth. Although Naomi resembled her older sister, her voice and manner of speaking were more akin to Peggy than his wife. Ripped jeans. Light brown hair. A ratty t-shirt. It was eerie, seeing echoes of the two women he loved most in the world manifested in the slender waif seated backwards on a chair, chin resting upon the back. She held out a glass of water.

"It depends upon what you mean by super hero." Steve propped himself up on one elbow, wincing as his shredded gut reminded him who was boss. "The media calls us that. Honestly, I'm not feeling very super _anything _right now." He sucked down the water Naomi offered like a man who had been in the desert for a month.

"Dad said I was supposed to feed you the minute you woke up." Naomi handed him a half-eaten bag of Doritos. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but she wore her cocky attitude like a shield. She reminded him a bit of her hero, Tony Stark.

He sat up and banged his head against the slanted ceiling, not an auspicious start to impress your new sister-in-law. Naomi gave him a nervous smile. It was a small room, just large enough for a bed, bureau and desk, but every square inch of it was Bernice, even the ceilings plastered with her artwork. He had been so exhausted last night that, the moment he had found something which carried her scent, he had fallen asleep. So this was where Bernice had grown up? It suited her. If he closed his eyes, he could almost picture it was his wife in the room with him now instead of her sister.

God. He was starving! He munched the chips in silence, forcing himself to eat slowly instead of stuffing the entire bag into his mouth to feed his souped-up metabolism which clamored for four times the number of calories a normal man needed. _Especially _when he was healing after an injury.

It was an awkward silence, filled only by the crunch of chips. Naomi fiddled with objects on Bernice's desk, as though by keeping busy she could keep her worry at bay. She grabbed a paper clip, straightened it, and used it as a miniature sword to scrape the grooves of the chair. Naomi was a 'doer.' Being confined to the house must go against everything her instincts screamed at her to do. He suspected she'd been ordered to stay home and care for him as much to protect _her _from doing something rash, such as sneaking a bus into the city and pounding down SHIELD's front door, as to care for _him._

"How come you didn't invite us to your wedding?" There was an accusation in her tone, but also curiosity.

"We … I don't know," Steve shrugged. "I was shipping out on a mission and I really just wanted to … marry her. We figured we'd have the reception once I got back."

Her expression softened. A dreamy look came into her eyes he had often seen whenever Bucky turned on the charm to pick up a woman. Bucky had understood women liked to be romanced, while Steve had always been awkwardly straightforward. It was funny how Naomi found his heartfelt plea to get Bernice to marry him, quick, before Time stole her away from him, to be romantic. It had been nothing of the sort.

"How come the aliens took my sister?" Naomi's voice wavered, her tough-girl façade beginning to crumble.

"Mostly to get at me." Steve looked past her at some artwork Bernice had drawn of an elf, a dwarf, and a human with a sword. He remembered what Taavi had said about a theory Stark Industries was working on to decipher alien communication. "Perhaps not completely because of me. Bernice was figuring out a lot of things the aliens don't want us to know. I think that's why Mr. Stark wants your dad to help. Some of the things she knew were because she'd heard your dad talk about it."

"Really?" Naomi had an incredulous look upon her face. That peculiar scorn he had noticed so many teenagers seemed to have for their parents. "I've always thought of my father as being such a … geek."

Steve remembered what Abraham had said about idealizing _him _instead of his own father. That quiet, strong man who had held the family together while Peggy had gone off to conquer the world. Taavi had crumbled after his wife had died, but now that he was perilously close to walking in his father-in-law's shoes, Steve could not say he would not do the same. William Miller's wife had come home after each adventure. Taavi Rosenthal's wife had _not._

"Never underestimate your dad," Steve said. "Behind every flashy meathead like _me_ stands an entire team of superhero sidekicks doing all of the _real _work. Like Doctor Nyi."

"Caleb said he saw where the alien got you." Her eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Did your, like, whole life pass before your eyes?"

He really didn't feel comfortable disrobing for show-and-tell with a seventeen year old. In fact, that part of him that remembered what it had been like when he'd been a 98 pound weakling didn't like stripping down. Period. For anyone except his wife.

"Yeah," Steve said. "I had this crazy dream your grandma Peggy was dressed up like a Valkyrie."

"She always said in her next lifetime she wanted to be one," Naomi said. "Or an angel. Do you think maybe it was real?"

Steve thought back to the way it had felt as Peggy had breathed life back into his body in Valhalla. The feel of her lips pressed against his forehead only minutes ago, urging him to get moving. Yes. It was real. But from what little had been said last night, Abraham had _omitted _the 67-year-sleep portion of his history and prior involvement with their grandmother. He chose his next words carefully.

"Your grandmother was one of the best friends I ever had," Steve said. "If there was anybody I'd want to meet in heaven, after your sister, it would be her. I think my mind was showing me what it wanted to see."

Naomi looked crushed, her fantasies of heaven dashed by his sloughing off of what he knew to be true.

"But it sure _felt _real at the time," he added.

She stared at him, her forehead wrinkled in thought.

"You really love my sister a lot, huh?

Steve's expression grew wistful. "How can you tell?"

"You talk in your sleep. When you called out her name … you were crying."

She stood and strode past him to the window before he could respond, snapping open the shade the rest of the way. Sunlight streamed in, almost sunset. He must have been asleep sixteen hours or more.

"So are you going to just lay there?" Naomi challenged. "Or are you going to go get my sister back?"

Déjà vu.

_Travelling with the USO troop from city to city, encouraging people to buy war bonds. The war effort was dependent upon the crops America grew to feed Allied soldiers. California's orange crop was being decimated by insects. A quarantine check had been set up at the state line._

_Jonathan Hart had made his money speculating in land in the mountains outside of Sacramento just before the California gold rush in 1845… _

_Peggy. Standing in front of a map. Six facilities were marked within the boundaries of the United States. One was outside of Sacramento._

Naomi stared at him, her expression puzzled. He must have frozen mid-sentence. He jerked to his feet, hitting his head upon the sloped ceiling a second time.

"I've got to go!"

"You should eat first," Naomi said. "Aunt Vera dropped off some food. She remembered how much you loved Bernice's green bean casserole, so she made some for you."

Green bean casserole. He could almost _feel _the twisting in his gut when the Natasha imposter had cut into his belly and left a piece inside, still trying to tear apart his intestines even though Clint had blasted the shape shifter to smithereens.

"There's no time!" Steve yanked on his boots, wincing as he bent. His gut still hurt, but the sleep had put him back on track for healing.

"That's okay." Naomi gave him a conspiratorial look. "I don't like it either. I'll take out a scoop to make them think you ate some, then give the rest to my father. _He _likes it."

"Thanks."

"Just get her. Okay?"

Pausing only long enough to visit the bathroom, he rushed out to his truck, the high-tech cell phone readily conquered as he used it to punch in text messages to the other Avengers.

_I think I know where they've taken her…_

X

XO X O X

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_Soundtrack: An Unfinished Life - Audiomachine_

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	67. Chapter 67

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**blown-transistor, LEPrecon, Aireon Maris, Courtney, Penny Tortoiseshell, Canyouholdballoons, Neko Tiger, Qweb, Kelly Jo, Mystewitch, Arrows the Wolf, lazarus73 **__and __**LoLoLaLoco.**_

_At __**Neko Tiger **__and __**Qweb …**__grammar/spelling booboos … all fixed … thanks._

_This chapter is a bunch of tying up of loose ends. All those little plot bunnies hopping around, breeding discontent and digging rabbit holes. Don't want our war horses to step in a plot hole and break their legs when we get to the action! And before everyone lynches me … the last scene at the end of Avengers revealed Thanos (an Eternal/Titan who worships Time/Death, brother of Eternity) was the one pulling the strings to get the Chitauri/Other (aka Mr. Hart) to invade Earth now that Loki failed._

_Thanks everyone for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 67

The clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk of the MRI made it feel as though the inside of Steve's skull was going to burst. If the rabbit hole they had shoved him into to take the brain scan got any smaller, he swore to god he was going to suffocate! Perhaps he should have allowed them to sedate him, as they'd ended up having to do to Thor to get him to lay still. Of course, to affect the metabolism of either an Asgardian or a super-soldier, you needed enough sedative to put a small, third-world country to sleep. Breathe. Just breathe. This would have been _so _much easier if he were still a ninety pound weakling. At least then his body would not have touched the sides of the narrow tube, cutting off what little fresh air could get inside. Breathe! If he had survived Doctor Erskine's super soldier machine, he could survive this!

The clamoring stopped. Oh thank god!

"We're all done here," Bruce Banner's voice came over the small speaker embedded in the machine. The narrow bed slid out, giving him his first glimpse of light. He sat up and self-consciously pulled shut the hospital johnny. There was nothing like having a bunch of strangers look into your noggin … or your uncovered backside … to make you feel exposed.

"Well?"

"Count Rugen was right," Bruce said. "You have the same brain physiology as Thor."

Steve glanced at the wall, hiding the rush of emotions that made him choke with joy, until he was able to compose himself. She was still alive! His wife was still alive! And somehow she had found a way to communicate with him. He took a deep breath, his hand over mouth to capture the exhalation that threatened to turn into tears. Joy had no place in his life until she was _safe._

"Speakest thee in English, please?" Thor said.

"It means he did it!" Doctor Nyi's stout form jiggled with excitement. "Doctor Erskine replicated whatever happened when your species evolved from ours."

"We are brothers!" Thor clasped his forearm and pulled him in for a hefty bear hug, slapping him on the back. With the All Father now out of his Odinsleep, ancient questions the Asgardians had always had about their _own _origins were beginning to seep from Asgard to Midgard. The long-lived Asgardians had evolved _here. _On Earth. 'Licked out of the ice by a primordial cow.' Whatever that meant. The Asgardians didn't know, either.

"Great," Steve said. "So how does this help me get my wife back?"

A series of images came into his mind. _Thanos. A purple-faced creature who worshipped Death. Time. Destroyer of worlds. The Other was a minion of Thanos._ It had been Thanos, operating through the Other,aka Mr. Hart, who had recruited Loki to invade Earth.

Steve glanced up at his grey-skinned alien friend, now freed from the bowels of the Triskelion and looking very much like any other scientist in his white lab coat and slacks. He had been instinctively communicating with the creature all along, mistaking the subconscious images the creature sent to communicate it was not a threat for his own intuition. What Doctor Erskine's serum had coaxed his brain to do naturally, to strengthen an untapped genetic potential most humans possessed to communicate telepathically, the Chitauri were doing via their nanovirus, selectively rewriting part of the genetic code of any species with lingering genetic traces of Eternal DNA.

"The Chitauri nanovirus can only replicate if it finds hybrid human-Eternal DNA," Bruce said. "One indicator is the gene for blonde hair, a recessive gene tracing back to Denisovan Hominids. Too much Eternal DNA, and your body simply eliminates the virus. Like not being able to get chicken pox a second time. Not enough, and the receptors it needs to bind itself to your neural pathways and transform them into something they can seize control of can't take root."

"They inject it straight into the limbic system so they can hack into the brains ability to control what the body is doing," Doctor Nyi said. "Which is why Corporal Washington developed scarring in his frontal lobes, but they weren't able to seize control of him the way they could with Jacquie or Mike. Incomplete delivery of the pathogen."

Images. _Bernice's father. Changing into something else. Shifting. Shifting. A plant. Changing. Evolving to adapt to its environment. Mutations. The shape shifters. Shifting. Shifting._ An evolutionary adaptation to change?

"You're saying Bernice's father is a shape shifter?"

The communications device Taavi Rosenthal had jury rigged out of a cell phone, a ham radio device called a TNC, and in interface with JARVIS, interpreted the Count's sub-audible thrum. His PDA displayed the word 'no' on the screen.

They now had _two _ways to communicate with Count Rugen. Via the telepathic communication the Chitauri had forced upon Count Rugen's brain via the nanovirus, a much coarser version of what Steve and Thor had developed naturally, leaving the telltale scars. Or via the modified PDA which converted the thirteen separate frequencies of the creature's natural form of speech, most above or below the threshold of human hearing, into patterns which could be compared to an increasing database of known Chitauri words.

Jacquie said that Bernice had been stung, but somehow she had been able to cast off control of the nanovirus to communicate telepathically as Count Rugen did. How? Steve formed the question in his mind, his brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to 'broadcast' that image. He was _terrible _at it. But Count Rugen was a motivated listener.

Images. _Bernice's father. In chains. Breaking those chains. Shifting. Shifting. Shifting into other forms. The chains … breaking again._

"Her father knows how to shape shift?"

The PDA buzzed. "A little." Images. _A curved ladder. Something tried to break the ladder. The ladder repaired itself._

"Her father knows how to fix what they do?"

Count Rugen shook his head an emphatic 'yes.' The PDA buzzed the same word onto the screen. "Yes."

An image. _The Chitauri. Rounding up races who contained genes that caused genetic mutation faster than the Chitauri could adapt their technology to subjugate it. Romani and Jews … both races with a higher-than-average occurrence of fast-mutating DNA. The Holocaust. Genocide. _

The reason why the Nazi's had tried to breed _more _blonde-haired, blue-eyed humans carrying traces of Eternal DNA, while simultaneously killing off people whose only crime was they had a higher-than-average capacity to develop genetic mutations than an average human. The Chitauri wanted to do to Earth what they had done to Count Rugen's home world.

"So now what?" Steve asked the others. "How do we alert the governments of the world they need to mobilize against an alien invasion without tipping off who knows how many moles the bastards embedded into every power structure on the planet?

"Taavi and his SETI friends are running radio-telescopic background noise through the thirteen-frequency Chitauri speech recognition program they just developed," Doctor Nyi said. "Every telescope in the world is being hacked into and aimed back at Earth, listening for what the bastards are saying. It's only a matter of time before we learn enough of their language to listen in on their conversations."

The three men Taavi had in his basement the night Steve showed up were colleagues from the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. SETI. A largely non-profit and volunteer network of scientists and engineers dedicated to listening for signs of sentient life. Until Bernice had put cetacean communication together with radio communication, it had never occurred to them to listen on thirteen different frequencies simultaneously.

No wonder the shape shifters had wanted Count Rugen dead! Not only did the Count know the secrets of the temple, but he was a 'deviant' who had cast off control of the Chitauri data stream and resisted the 'kill' command. How long had he been self-aware, as Bernice was, and quietly sabotaging their efforts?

_"If they find out that you can still think," Bernice had whispered. "They will kill you."_

He stepped behind the screen to change. Pepper had made sure his last three days at Stark Tower were comfortable ones, every need anticipated before he asked for it except his overwhelming urge to stop dithering and go retrieve his wife! He stepped out, his fist clenched in frustration.

"We'll get her," Bruce said. "As soon as we narrow down that 'X' in the Sierra Nevada to a location we can storm. If we move in without an exact location, they'll just take off like they did in Vanuatu."

"There are two active volcanoes in that area," Steve said. "Pick one."

"Director Fury redeploys assets there without tipping off their spies he moves into position," Thor said. "As soon as we isolate their base, we shall smite thine enemies!"

"I know." He knew Fury was doing what he had done in Vanuatu. "That doesn't mean I like waiting." Understatement of the year. He wanted to get moving so badly, he was ready to crawl out of his own skin.

"You haven't heard from her again?" Bruce asked.

"No. It's been three nights. Whatever she did to reach me, she hasn't been able to repeat it."

Either that, or she had gotten caught. God! He couldn't even think about it! She feared they would kill her. The Chitauri had no value for life beyond how it could be used as a tool and how quickly they could rid themselves of it once they were done using it.

"How is Doctor Nyi coming deciphering the Count's language?"

"It's coming," Bruce said. "Unfortunately, with his damaged vocal chords, a lot of what he tries to say doesn't translate into what the SETI people are ferreting out of the radiotelescopic noise. Until we learn more of their language, the best the poor guy can do is use _show _us how do something by building it himself."

Neither one mentioned the alternative means of communication … conveying images into Steve's head. The technology the Count had rattling around in his brain was giving even Tony Stark a run for his money.

"You shall find thy mate, Commander Rogers." Thor placed a hand on his shoulder. "Heimdall turns his all-seeing eye towards Midgard to aid thou search. The gift your machine can see runs strongest of all our people in Heimdall. If her mind reaches towards thee, he shall see it."

"It's too bad Count Rugen can't communicate with _you_, Thor," Steve said. "You're a lot better at this than I am."

"The gift only works between those with close bonds of kinship," Thor said. "Or fellowship forged in battle. The Count cannot communicate with me because he does not _trust _me the way he trusts you."

"Scientists have been studying ESP for decades with little progress," Bruce said. "For now, I don't think it matters _how _it works, only that it does."

The door burst open.

"You guys had better come quick!" Ralph said, Bernice's co-worker. "You're not going to believe this!"

They hurried after the advanced weapons research division engineer, down into the lab where Bernice worked. Steve glanced over at her cubicle, a work space he had never seen until three days ago. Like her old bedroom at her father's house, it lived and breathed sketches, only these were of aliens holding very _real _technology. He had done the right thing, asking for Pepper to give her a job. But he had done the _wrong _thing by thinking they had eliminated the threat when they'd flushed that mother ship out of Yasur volcano. What was it the Natasha imposter had said? You have no idea what you've done? By the frenetic scurrying around Tony Stark and Bernice's father right now, he had a feeling he was about to find out.

"What worries thou so, Merchant of Death?" Thor asked.

"Look." Tony Stark's expression was grim. He pointed to a computer screen surrounded by Stark Industries engineers, Bernice's father, and the three men Taavi Rosenthal had recruited to help them find his daughter. It was a picture. Of space.

"I don't see anything," Bruce said.

"Holy shit," Doctor Nyi said. Whatever it was, _he _saw it. The Stark Industries chief engineer and scientist began to tremble.

"JARVIS," Tony said. "Enlarge. So the whole room can see."

A floor-to-ceiling holographic image appeared on one side of the room. Rocks? Steve _still _had no idea what he was seeing.

"Did you guys just hack into the Hubble Telescope?" Rick Jones asked.

"Zoom in to the asteroid belt just to the left of Ceres," Tony said.

The image enlarged. At that resolution, even _Steve _could tell what he was looking at. Mother ships. _Dozens _of them. Lined up in perfect formation and just clearing the asteroid belt which had masked their approach towards Earth.

The room grew strangely quiet. Steve's PDA buzzed. His eyes met Count Rugen's worried grey ones as he read the message.

_No time._

"It's an alien armada," Taavi Rosenthal said aloud.

"Shit…" Tony Stark sighed. "Pepper is going to be pissed."

X

_Note: The upcoming plot line is very loosely based upon a scenario from Ultimate Avengers (I say -very- because I have adapted it at will like everything else in this story … but UA-verse fans may find similarities)._

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	68. Chapter 68

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. I'd also like to thank the readers who posted reviews, including __**Noclaf, blown-transistor, RipplesOfAqua, Adamantium Rose, Qweb, Jelsemium, Aireon Maris, Tink508, Arrows the Wolf, Neko Tiger, Courtney, lazarus 73, AoiKuroNekoSan, Tante, Kelly Jo, Mystewitch, PennyTortoiseshell, LEPrecon, **__and __**LoLoLaLoco.**_

_Sorry this took so long to write. I'm back into my busy season and work is interfering with my quality time with my favorite imaginary friends!_

_Thanks everyone for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 68

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

Image. _Body moving. No! Drilling holes into children's head. No! Mind sees … can't change what body does._

The PDA buzzed "yes."

"He's right," Jacquie said. "In here, we can give you information without risking the mission. Out there…" Her voice trailed off.

The brand spanking new helicarrier U.S.S. William Tecumseh Sherman had a containment cell identical to the one in the Triskelion. Unlike that cell, this one had been filled with all manner of one-way electronic equipment that would allow the Count to monitor the Chitauri radio signals and pass what they were saying along to Rick Jones via Jacquie, but not broadcast anything. It wasn't quite putting them back into a prison cell, but … dammit … it was!

"I don't like it," Steve said. "There must be some other way."

"We can't guarantee Mr. Stark's dampening helmet will protect them from the Chitauri command signal if we get close to a mother ship," Rick Jones said. "The Count is a maintenance-class drone, not a battle-one, but he's still nearly as strong as you are. If he turns on you, you would have no choice but to kill him."

Image. _Steve. Kneeling over him. Applying pressure to his severed throat to save his life._

The PDA buzzed. "No want hurt. Steve friend."

"It's for the best, Steve," Jacquie said. "You have no idea what it's like to have someone make your body do terrible things and not be able to do anything about it."

Steve's cell phone buzzed. Not a translation from Count Rugen, but a regular text message. _Rogers … get your ass up here. We're starting the debriefing - F._

"You can understand his images?" Steve asked Jacquie.

"A little," Jacquie said. "Without the amplifier boosting the signal, I get emotions more than pictures. But … we've reached an understanding." She reached out to touch Count Rugen's arm. The Count nodded. Whatever she had just said verbally had also been conveyed via the crude telepathic communications ability the Chitauri had rammed into both of their brains. An ability developed more to transmit commands to control motor function than to communicate with one another.

Steve's PDA buzzed again. Another text message. _Rogers … where the hell are you!_

"Go get her," Jacquie said. "She's going to need somebody who understands what it's been like for her."

Human and alien looked through the glass of the prison cell as it closed in front of them, a strange juxtaposition of Jacquie with her red-and-black striped hair on only one side of her head, the other side burned close to her scalp and bandaged, and the six-fingered alien who towered over her by more than a foot, wearing slacks, a button down shirt, and a white lab coat. The airlock whooshed, sealing them both inside. All communication would now be made from the tiny speaker next to the door of the cell.

The PDA buzzed, now only able to read the regular phone network and not the communications interface with Count Rugen.

_Rogers!_

Waving goodbye, Steve made his way up to the flight hanger, where he was being tasked with briefing the troops about fighting off the biggest threat mankind had ever faced.

X

The floor vibrated beneath his feet as an announcement came over the intercom warning them the helicarrier was about to launch. The four heli-engines, which had been warming up as the ship cruised out of the dry dock at Newport News shipyard on its regular engines, roared to life. The entire ship hummed as the propellers gained enough speed to lift the enormous carrier out of the harbor. The liftoff was less steady than the takeoffs and landings of her sister ship the USS Gerald Ford, but with barely time to commandeer a new captain to pilot the USS Sherman, such a hiccup on her maiden voyage was to be expected.

Metal groaned at the sudden shift of weight as she lifted herself out of her watery cradle. Nothing about the USS William Tecumseh Sherman CVN-80 spoke of being finished. She had been hastened to completion years ahead of schedule due to the Chitauri threat and put into service the moment her flight deck had been welded on and the heli-drive engines made operational. The scent of primer assailed his nostrils, the final coat of paint postponed until _after _they dealt with the latest threat. Men frantically ironed the bugs out of the communications systems and jury-rigged equipment onto a bridge that had yet to be completed. He hoped their efforts would not be in vain. The helicarrier was far more advanced than anything he had ever served upon in World War II, but they were about to go head-to-head against Chitauri spaceships.

One of the MP's recognized him and hastened him to the front of the line, but _nobody_ wasallowed access into the hanger bay until they had passed through all three levels of security. The first checkpoint was an X-ray to make sure his innards really _were _human. Medics at a second examined both eye sockets for scarring. The third asked you to put your chin into an optometrist's glaucoma test machine, but when the puff of air was blown into your eyes, headphones blasted an unpleasant sound. A computer scanned your iris and rejected any soldier who took too long to contract back to normal size. The last test yielded a lot of false positives who were then cleared by an MRI, but it was the best they had been able to come up with on short notice.

The precaution had turned out to be prudent. They had already tagged fourteen human drones who swore they had no memory of being stung, but who all had the telltale signs of scarring on the brain.

He found Director Fury, Tony Stark and Thor standing next to a tall, thin mulatto man wearing a black SHIELD uniform, four stern-looking secret service agents standing on either side of him. Fury gestured for him to come forward.

"It's about time you decided to grace us with your presence, Commander Rogers." Fury gave him a one-eyed disapproving stare. "The President has better things to do than wait."

The SHIELD-attired gentleman turned around. Steve recognized him immediately, although the _last _time he had met the President he had been in less than pristine shape, still lain up in Walter Reed Medical Center with his guts spliced back together on a wing and a prayer. He'd been expecting the President to make his address to the troops via satellite uplink. They must have decided a telecomm link was too risky, not sure which encryption codes had been hacked by Chitauri moles.

"Mr. President, my apologies," Steve shook his hand. "I was getting our alien friend settled into his new accommodations."

"You're certain we can trust him?" the President's brow furrowed in concern.

"He's asking the same thing of himself, Sir," Steve said. "It's why we put him in the containment cell. _He _wants to be free of Chitauri slavery, but he cannot guarantee Mr. Stark's transmission blocking helmet will prevent them from seizing control of his motor skills again. He said he'd rather help us from someplace he can do no harm."

The President nodded.

"They're ready for us, Sir," one of the secret service agents said.

"Attention!" General Dempsey shouted. "The President of the United States is on the hanger deck!"

The 9,000 troops who had just finished clearing security snapped to attention, murmurs of surprise amongst the men who had no idea why they had been mobilized to an aircraft carrier that was, for all intents and purposes, _barely _even finished. Steve thought it fitting the President had named this carrier after General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose march to the sea had split the rebel south in half and won the Civil War. It was what they hoped to do now with the alien threat.

"Gentlemen and ladies," the President's expression was somber. "As you all know, our world has experienced three separate attacks from a race known as the Chitauri. What you _did not _know was that as of oh-three-twenty hours yesterday afternoon, we detected a _new _threat on the horizon. Mr. Stark … if you would?"

Tony Stark strutted out in front of the men, wearing his favorite worn jeans and a Black Sabbath t-shirt. His expression was not the cocky weapons dealer he usually showed the troops, but the grim one only those who had ever seen him buck authority to go after some despot the powers-that-be refused to deal with on his own dime had ever seen. He aimed his PDA at the six enormous large-screen televisions which had been jury-rigged around the hanger deck. A map of the world with base sites taken directly from Steve's drawing of Peggy made all those years ago marked in red pins flashed onto the screens.

"As you know, we flushed a second mother-ship out of Yasur volcano in Vanuatu," the President said. "What you _don't _know is that we have evidence of no fewer than 63 other active Chitauri bases already on Earth."

A low murmur of fear went through the troops.

"We're pretty sure all of those are not mother ships," the President said. "In fact, the New York City base was little more than an infiltration hub for their agents when we raided it. But our intelligence indicates at _least_ 23 other locations have a level of activity which would support a mothership. Three of them are on US soil."

"Are we supposed to bail out China?" one of the soldiers pointed to three bases marked across the Far East.

"Each country has been sent the location of the bases on _their _home turf," the President said. "But we have not sent them the complete map. We don't want to tip off the aliens we know the full Monty until we move into position to deal with them."

"Let's go kick some alien butt!" several troops murmured.

"I wish it were that easy," the President's expression was grim. "Mr. Stark … if you please?"

Tony flashed the presentation forward to the images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope yesterday afternoon. The room became ghastly quiet. Every man in the hanger recognized what they were looking at.

"How many, Sir?" one of the men dared ask.

"We counted thirty-six," the President said. "As you can see, _they _are here." The President turned to where Bruce Banner had just come into the room. "Doctor Banner? If you would take over?"

Bruce had that quiet seriousness that only someone who had ever seen him transform into his alter-ego would understand meant the Hulk was raring for a fight. Every mannerism of Bruce's behavior spoke of self-control. The pauses he took to breathe deeply. The faint glimmer of green at the edge of his iris that faded every time he paused and took a breath. The crisp snap of his movements, making him appear like an overwound clock. He took off his glasses, which Steve knew to be fake, and turned towards the troops.

"We have intelligence there may be a difference-of-opinion within the Chitauri ranks about how to deal with our planet," Bruce said. "There are two factions. One infiltrated our society slowly over a period of the last three hundred years and disguised their plans as the work of governments and petty dictatorships." Bruce flipped the screen back to the marks on the map. "These locations appear to be a part of that plan." He flipped back to the picture of the approaching spaceships. "These guys, on the other hand, showed up over the objections of the first faction."

Bruce flipped the monitors to the security footage recorded outside of Count Rugen's cage the day the Natasha imposter had killed the second shape shifter. Most of the conversation was not audible to human ears, but with Count Rugen's help, JARVIS was learning their language as quickly as the Count could ferret out individual words out from Chitauri transmissions made by drones not burdened with damaged vocal chords. Subtitles streamed at the bottom of the video along with a visual display of the thirteen different audio signal wavelengths which comprised the creature's speech.

"This is _my _jurisdiction!" Natashimposter hissed. "Why have you come?"

"Our god is displeased with your snail's pace, One," the dark skinned, blonde haired shape shifter said. "He has charged the Other with doing what you should have accomplished almost a century ago."

"The Other failed!" Natashimposter laughed. "Miserably! Do you still think you can just come here and the people of Earth will bow down before you? They will fight you to the death!"

"Their technology is primitive," the second shape shifter said. "Our god wants you to conquer them and be done with it!"

"Our god is looking for a victory because the Kree have beaten him back to a remote backwater," Natashimposter said. "If he wishes to rebuild his armies, then he needs drones."

"Which _you _were supposed to increase for us," the second shape shifter said. "Instead, these humans are intermarrying with deviants faster than you can kill them off!"

"I anticipated the United States would drop a nuclear warhead on the Middle East and wipe out the races supplying the deviant DNA after I manipulated the deviants to attack," Natashimposter said. "How was _-I- _supposed to know they would invade those countries and try to nation-build?"

A murmur of surprise rippled through the assembled troops. Many of the men had served in the two wars Steve had missed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their first assumption had been that the Chitauri had infiltrated _that _area of the world and were using _those _people as drones. But there had been _no _future Chitauri bases marked on the map Steve had memorized back in 1945. Back then, the Middle East had been little more than a squabble over oil between the Allies and the Axis. They had aimed Earth's satellites into that area of the world and searched for signs of a mothership. They found communications from each hot spot, but the signals were little more than infiltration hubs such as the American Radiator Building. Places the shape shifters could infiltrate society under the guise of commerce or government, but not likely to be motherships.

"Our tests indicate the genetic tracers you are pursuing are becoming _weaker _in their species," the second shape shifter said in the video. "Not purer as you promised when we put you in charge of this world. The deviants are polluting your future drones with genetic mutations. They are useless to us now!"

"Those deviants are developing abilities which would make even Thanos appear weak," Natashimposter laughed. "Or has our god not told you that he, himself carries deviant DNA? Why do you think he has become so powerful?"

"You speak as though you admire them," the second shapeshifter hissed. "Have you gone native on us?"

"Had the Eternal the Jew retro-engineered not murdered my hybrid Red Skull," Natashimposter said, "I would have created my _own _race of half-Eternal, half-deviant super soldiers! All created in our god's image and eager to serve him of their own free will! Drones would be unnecessary!"

"Your mission here was to create drones," the second shape shifter said. "Nothing more. Thanos has ordered you to submit to the authority of the Other."

Natashimposter turned to look towards the doorway, where Steve knew _he _had just come into the room.

"You're not in charge here," Natashimposter said in English, looking at the doorway. "I am. Isn't that right, man out of time?"

Natashaimposter tossed Steve his shield and attacked her opponent. The video screen went to static. Erased. By whoever was the mole in the Pentagon, which even now they had not found out for sure, but they had suspicions by who had disappeared the moment the President had begun screening all Pentagon personnel through the same three screening tests he had instituted at the entrance to the hanger bay.

"You _all _had to pass a series of tests to enter this room today," Bruce Banner said. "Some of you have heard rumors that some of these aliens can assume the form of any one of you. Or that these aliens have found a way to turn _humans _into drones, just like the grey-skinned aliens who some of you have already come up against. The rumors are _true. _The woman in the video was not the _real _Agent Romanov, who unbeknownst to _us _was killed in action months before and replaced by an infiltrator. She was aided by _humans _who had been stung by a Chitauri shape shifter. The aliens carry a nanovirus which rewrites the neural pathways in the brain so that the aliens can step in and seize control of your body as though it was a child's remote control car."

Steve glanced over to where Clint stood silently off to one side, staring at the fletching on his arrows as he painstakingly straightened each feather so that the arrow would fly true. Clint glanced up, a look of such sorrow and rage in his eyes that, for a moment, Steve felt as though he were staring into Banner's eyes in the moments before he transformed into the Hulk. It was a good thing the infinity serum was stable. Or Banner wouldn't be the _only _one being ordered to smash.

The President unwound his lanky frame from the folding chair where he'd momentarily sat down to not upstage the experts in the field and stepped back in front of the troops.

"The USS Sherman is on her way to run a parallel mission with the USS Gerald Ford," the President said. "We only have two helicarriers to simultaneously deal with three mother ships located on American soil, but because these bases are land-bound, they are within the reach of our other assets."

The President nodded to Tony Stark, who changed the video screen to show the location of the three suspected mother ships.

"All three are located directly over active volcanoes, just as in Vanuatu. The supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park, the supervolcano at Long Valley, California, and the Zuni-Bandera Lava Field in New Mexico," the President said. "We believe they did this to tap into the free source of geothermal energy posed by the volcano, and also because it discourages curiosity seekers who might accidentally stumble upon their base. Volcanology is such a young science that any seismic activity caused by the aliens has been chocked up to a lack of data."

"Now you know why people have been seeing little green men out in the middle of the desert all these years," Tony Stark said. "Turns out they weren't nuts."

The troops gave an uneasy laugh. So did the President. They'd had vipers in their midst all this time and the moles within their own government had been using misinformation about alien hoaxes to cover it up.

"How can we hope to prevail against such a threat, Sir?" one of the troops asked Tony Stark, not daring to address the President directly. "I mean … with 36 new ships almost on top of us, what can we hope to achieve?"

"Many of you are part of Special Forces units," the President said. "I'm turning command of this mission over to the only man who has successfully spearheaded three missions against the alien invaders not only _now, _but also in the past. Commander Rogers? It's your show."

The butterflies fluttered in Steve's stomach that he had _always _felt whenever he was front and center of a mission where men would die. A year touring with the USO had turned out to be as much of a proving ground for leadership skills than all the hand-to-hand combat lessons he'd taken since then. There was nothing like stepping on stage and taking on a persona you did not _feel _to sell something people did not want to _buy _to make a leader out of a man. Now, instead of war bonds, he was selling hope. It was one of the reasons he'd chosen to keep the red, white and blue coloring of his armor once they'd started putting him in charge of leading men into battle. Not only was he a symbol for _them _to follow, but the costume was also a symbol for _himself _to set aside his own fear and _lead _these men. The reassuring rumble of the powerful heli-engines whirring beneath his feet steadied his nerve. If Liberty had been able to throw this beast together on a wing and a prayer, then _he _could lead this mission.

"You're going to split into three groups," Steve pointed to the three suspected motherships. "Many of you are either Special Forces, or have served in a support capacity for these kinds of operations before. One group will be under SHIELD Director Nick Fury on the USS Gerald Ford. You'll be shipped out there as soon as the briefing is done. You're going to be dealing with the mothership in New Mexico. The second group will remain here on the USS Sherman with General Dempsey. You're going to attack the mothership at the Yellowstone supervolcano. The third group will be coming with _me_ and the rest of the Avengers. We're going to be taking out the mothership at the Long Valley supervolcano. All three groups will be supported by the full contingent of our nation's military who, as we speak, are being mobilized for an unnamed threat. Including B2 stealth bombers … in case we fail."

"Fail?" one of the troops asked. "What are we going to _do _to these motherships once we get there, Sir?"

Steve looked across the troops he was sending on a potential suicide mission that would rival Doolittle's Raid on Honshu, his expression grim. If his plan failed, not only would he lose the only chance he might ever have to get back his wife, but their entire planet faced subjugation and, possibly, extinction.

"We're going to steal them."

X

X

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_Images posted: fanbuilt working helicarrier, US active volcanoes_

_Soundtrack: Won't Follow - Second Suspense_

_Just in case anybody is wondering what today's recommended soundtrack has to do with this chapter, picture the heli-drives firing to life and the whirring blades vibrating the deck beneath your feet as the ship glides towards its destination. It's a 'travel tune.'_

_Don't forget to leave a review in the little box below. Love it. Hate it. Drop me a line!_


	69. Chapter 69

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to M.H. ., kogouma, Canyouholdballoons, Jelsemium, Qweb, GhibliGirl91, Arrows the Wolf, Neko Tiger, Adamantium Rose, blown-transistor, AllieKatheryn, Aireon Maris, Courtney, LEPrecon, Mystewitch, lazarus73, Penny Tortoiseshell, Kelly Jo, RipplesOfAqua, LoLoLaLoco, and Tante._

_I've got houseguests for the holiday weekend so did not get to double-proof-read this chapter the way I would of liked, but I wanted to update so I did not leave people twisting in the wind!_

_Special thanks to those of you who have been trying to help me master Thor's dialogue. Those thee's, those, thou's and thy's are really a pain in the neck to master! Methinks I must goest on a Shakespeare binge once done this fic!_

_Thanks everyone for reading!_

X

X

Chapter 69

"Cap, this is Covert Three, over."

"Covert Three, what's your status?" Steve called.

"Detect three sentries loitering as park rangers near the fumerole," the Covert Three leader said. "It looks like this may be the main entrance."

"How can you tell they _aren't _park rangers?" Steve asked.

"It's seventeen degrees out here, Sir," Covert Three called. "They've been sitting on the bench, pretending to eat their lunch for nearly an hour and not once have they taken a bite. _Or _moved to stomp their feet."

"Sounds like our guys," Steve called. "Stand by."

He moved his binoculars to the hills behind Covert Three where two members of a Special Forces team were pretending to be snowboarders, skiing down the untamed hills of the Sierra Nevada. As a national park, especially this close to Christmas break when the colleges had just let out for the holidays, the park was _filled _with escapees from Sacramento and Fresno, looking to get a little winter fun. Mammoth Mountain Ski Area was located on the north wall of the enormous, 20 mile long and 11 mile wide caldera, but that part of the caldera had been ruled out as a suspect. Which was unfortunate, because they could have disguised an entire battalion as skiers and moved into position.

There were always extreme sports enthusiasts who preferred skiing the untamed wilderness. Just enough that he could legitimately put small groups of 2-3 men disguised in the colorful attire of snowboarders on every peak and not arouse suspicion.

"Covert Five, Covert Five, this is the Cap. How are things up there in the hills?"

"Cold, sir," the Covert Five leader said.

"You got eyes on Covert Three?"

"Yes, Sir," Covert Five said. "I agree with their assessment. It's damned cold up here and those guys ain't even pulled off their gloves to rub their hands together."

"Stand by," Steve ordered. He switched the radio dial to the frequency they were using to coordinate the three missions at large. "Director Fury, General Dempsey, this is the Cap. Come in?"

"I read you," General Dempsey said. As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was the lead commander who would give the order to pull the trigger. Having someone that high-ranking take a hands-on approach to a mission such as this was unprecedented. But with the Pentagon compromised, the President wasn't taking any chances. He had placed someone he trusted in charge. After, of course, running the general through the gauntlet of tests they'd cooked up to screen out potential Chitauri shape shifters and drones.

"We have the suspect location," Steve called. "Fumerole just off of Interstate 395. South end of the park, about five miles south south-east of Lake Crowley."

"Have your men cleared that end of the park?" General Dempsey called.

"Affirmative, Sir," Steve called. "Couple of hikers and about a half dozen skiers. All had appropriate reflexes, Sir. We're holding them incognito, just in case."

"The other two targets have been identified," General Dempsey called. "Move your men into position and wait for my command. Standing by."

Steve relayed the information to the soldiers in the field. Flooding the park with two thousand Special Forces soldiers dressed as snowboarders would have been a dead giveaway. It was time to pick the brains of his fellow Avengers. He rolled out the map.

"Based on the shape of the mountain they erupted from in Vanuatu and the location of the fumerole we suspect may be an entrance," Steve pointed to a sub-peak of Crocker Mountain, the entire shape of the mountain curiously round in a range of mountains that had sharp peaks like a witches teeth. "I suspect _this _mountain is fake. The USGS maps say this area just north of here is where the heaviest earthquake activity has been in recent years, the same approximate distance from the suspect mountain as Mount Tukusmera was from Yasur Volcano. Just far enough away that they aren't sitting on a pot of magma, but close enough that they can run their steam technology under the ground to harness the free energy."

"Traversing such territory in the snow shall be difficult, Commander Rogers," Thor said. "I hath traversed such terrain when Asgard battled the ice giants. We lost many good men to the cliffs."

"Is that the only entrance?" Clint asked. "That looks too small to get in enough equipment to supply a ship that large. We found evidence of secondary entrances at Mount Tukusmera besides the Yasur volcano entrance once we went back and looked at the satellite images.

"There are several small fumeroles in the area," Steve said, "but none large enough to fit a man. The temperature is over 200 degrees. Any man trying to crawl down that hole would be boiled alive."

"What of this tiny lake on the east side of the mountain?" Tony Stark pointed out. "That's a pretty wide hiking path to not go anywhere."

"Steelhead Lake," Steve said. "Covert Seven reported lots of cross-country ski tracks, but no people." He frowned. "It's possible."

"It's a vent," Tony Stark pointed to the map. "Look at the layout of the fumeroles and hot spots the volcanologists have marked on the map. Here … here … here … and here. That's where they vent their exhaust from whatever they've got running under that mountain."

"It would explain why there have been so many deaths from poisonous gasses," Bruce Banner pointed to a skull and crossbones. "Two skiers fell into that one several years ago and had the insides of their lungs boiled alive when they tried to inhale, and then the guy who went in after them died too. The place has been off-limits ever since."

Steve picked up his radio.

"Covert Seven, this is the Cap."

"Cap, this is Covert Seven."

"Send two men on cross country skis to poke around Steelhead Lake again," Steve called. "We suspect there's a main entrance that becomes less active after a large snowfall so there are not tire tracks in the snow."

"Roger," the Covert Seven leader called.

While they waited, Steve began the delicate work of redirecting over two thousand Special Forces units into position without being seen. Just outside the park, he had an additional thousand stationed to provide air support and logistics. B-2 Stealth Bombers were standing by at Travis Air Force Base, while fighter jets were idling on the runway at Beale Air Force Base and Lemoore Naval Air Station. He needed to launch this mission against the mothership at the same time General Dempsey and Nick Fury launched _their _missions, only unlike those two commanders, Steve did not have a flying aircraft carrier to chase the mothership into the air. Instead, the Avengers were acting as a third helicarrier, coordinating Iron Man and Thor with the B-2 bombers.

Mountains ringed a gigantic grassy plain with a series of lakes in the middle, the sleeping giant which lay beneath too hot to allow for the growth of deeper-rooted species such as trees. The mountains that surrounded the gigantic crater were the walls of a cone which had erupted, and then collapsed inward on itself, around 740,000 years ago. Unlike tiny, active Yasur, they were, quite literally, standing on top of an active VEI7 supervolcano.

"The minute I get airborne," Tony Stark grumbled. "They're going to see me coming."

"Nay, Merchant of Death," Thor slapped him on the back. It made a metallic 'thunk' as the God of Thunder's hand hit the metal suit. "Thou shalt fly through these canyons yonder with me?"

"That sounds like a plan."

The two bumped fists. Steve couldn't help but laugh. The two biggest egos in Asgard and Midgard had stopped killing one another and were now the best of buddies. _Battle _buddies. He glanced over to where Bruce Banner sat, memorizing the map. Bruce had confided in him that when faced with a perplexing situation that required some response from his alter-ego other than 'smash,' some small part of his consciousness became aware the Hulk-personality was open to suggestions. He _still _had no control over what his uninhibited limbic-system-self did, but by anticipating places the big green guy might run into trouble and seek guidance, the doctor hoped to someday get the two parts of his severed personality to begin to integrate.

"Let's move into position," Steve said. "Tony … you're going to provide air support over here in case this thing flies the coop. Provide cover for Recon Six while they try to find a way in this vent. Thor … you're going to safeguard Recon Three as they move into this remote location, at least until they get inside. Once they're in, you're air support if this thing tries to take off. Bruce … you're going right the entrance closest to the highway. Take out those three guards and ram your big green body through that hole. Recon Five will back you up, but I'm going to order them to hang back and stay the hell out of your way because your big green friend doesn't know them. Clint … you're with me. You're going to take over outside communications while I bash down the front door with Recon Seven."

The Avengers broke up and moved into position with their traditional military backup. Steve used a Chitauri glider to rendezvous where Recon Seven hunkered down in the hills, watching the small lake that was their target. Clint settled in behind him, along with a small battalion of Marines trained to use the adapted technology. Thank goodness the gliders were silent. It was a pity they didn't have more of them! As for Banner … he nonchalantly pretended to ski right up to where the three guards disguised as park rangers guarded their secondary entrance, pausing to take pictures and playing the part of the tourist. Once transformed, the Hulk would go wherever the most action was. There was no giving the Hulk orders … only aiming Banner so that hopefully the weapon would strike where it was needed most. Which was why Recon Five was backing him up even though, if Hulk did as they hoped, he wouldn't need it.

At last the call came. "Cap … this is General Dempsey. We are a go. Repeat. We are a go."

"It's show time," Steve called into the general tactical frequency. "Everybody … move in. Move in. I repeat. Move in now."

"Rock and roll … whoo!" Tony Stark shouted over the radio. In the background, they could hear the noise of the Iron Man suit speeding through the air at Mach 2 speed.

The orders were that they would use as little radio communication as possible while moving into position, and none at all once they got inside. Normally a commander such as himself would remain out of the fray during such a large mission, but they'd agreed to turn the outside logistics over to Clint once they began to move in. Clint was every bit as competent as Steve was with this kind of command, and his birds-eye view would afford them the extra security of the occasional grenade-laden arrow. Steve's past familiarity with the way the aliens worked would be more useful _inside_ the mothership.

There was no way in hell Steve was _not _going to run inside and look for his wife…

Crouched against the wall of the cliffs, Recon Seven and the battalion of Marines followed him to the crevasse where several sets of ski-tracks stopped dead at a sheer cliff. An entrance of some sort? Steve gestured to the Recon Seven leader. A squadron of munitions experts moved to either side and began to search for cracks.

"I detect a straight line, Sir," a munitions expert with a heavy southern drawl said.

"Prepare to blow," the Recon Seven leader said. His eyes met Steve's. "Everybody knows nature abhors a straight line."

"I'll take care of that for you right quick, sir," the munitions expert drawled. Within minutes, the squad had the entire cliff face laden with C4 plastic explosives.

"Sir, we're ready," the Recon Seven leader said. He had that grim look most soldiers had when they were about to rush into battle. Steve nodded. The Recon Seven leader called into his comms unit.

"Fire in the hole!"

The cliff face exploded outward, showering them with rock. Chunks rained down upon his blue flak helmet, making his ears ring, but they were far enough away to avoid the larger boulders.

"Move in! Move in! Move in!" Steve shouted. They rushed towards the mangled cliff face before the dust even cleared and they could confirm there was indeed a tunnel. The stench of sulfur and dirt filled his nostrils as he scrambled over boulders and tumbled down the other side. As they had anticipated, it was another entrance.

"Hawkeye," Steve called. "This is the Cap. Relay to General Dempsey we have found the main entrance. We are entering inside."

"Roger," Clint called. "I have relayed to Eagle's One, Two and Three to get in the air. ETA twenty minutes." _Eagle _was the designation for the B-2 Stealth bombers.

"Launch vipers," Steve called. "I want the air around this place _filled _with birds."

The Recon Seven leader and 30 of his best Army Rangers followed Steve into the belly of the beast, 300 Marines surging just behind them. This was supposed to be a _stealth _operation, but circumstances dictated the best they could hope for was to distract the Chitauri by the explosion so that one of the other teams could creep down one of the air vents. They hoped not to blow up the ship, but to _steal _it so they had something more advanced than helicarriers to take on the thirty-six mother ships that were, even now, slipping into orbit.

An inhuman shriek erupted from the tunnel. The sound of marching. Many feet.

"We've got company!" the Army Ranger shouted who was point man in the cave.

"Go to infra red! I repeat … go to infra red!" Steve shouted. "Are they Chitauri? Or drone?"

"I can't see … it's…"

The sound of gunfire erupted further down the tunnel . Shouting. Screams of anger … and the sound of somebody's death-screech by the awful scream which wafted down the tunnel.

"Two shape-shifters and about thirty drones," the call came over the radio above the sound of M-17 pulse rifles firing. "We think! It's hard to tell, Sir."

"Hawkeye," Steve shouted over the radio. "Are the others ready to deploy the countermeasures?"

There was a delay as Clint relayed the information to the other units and got feedback.

"They're ready!" Clint called.

"Headphones on!" Steve shouted to his men. "I repeat. Headphones on! You … plant the countermeasure over there. Countermeasures are about to be deployed!"

The men shoved earplugs into their ears and, if they had not already done so, their computerized infra-red night vision goggles. Not only could the goggles _see_ like the first-generation goggles Bernice had used that night on the Statue of Liberty, but they also enhanced the image and relayed it back to a command center. Only … without the ability to broadcast a signal due to the countermeasures, the only people who be able to see the images would be the people wearing them. Fighting without the ability to hear was a disadvantage, but it was the only option they had. Steve cringed. This was going to hurt!

"Countermeasures … deploy," Steve shouted out loud and over the radio at the same time.

A bone-shattering shrieking noise drowned out the sound of men shouting and pulse rifles ricocheting off the walls of the tunnel. It was line-of-sight communication only. _Nothing _could escape the jamming devices Taavi Rosenthal and his friends from SETI had cooked up to block not only radio transmissions, but the very signal the Chitauri used to control their drones. Steve signaled to the Recon Seven leader to order his men to move in. Using hand signals, the soldiers lined up against either side of the wall and began the delicate dance of one line of men providing cover fire while the others crept up to the next available piece of cover. Up ahead, white flashes of light from pulse rifles exploding and ricocheting off of the tunnel walls made an eerie, silent light show with their ears blocked to prevent deafness from the countermeasures.

Using hand signals, Steve assigned a sizeable platoon of men to guard the countermeasure. If _that _fell, they would be at a bigger disadvantage than they already were. The countermeasure merely evened the odds a bit.

They crept up beyond the next line, rounding a bend in the tunnel. Steve touched the shoulder of a Ranger crouched behind a boulder, firing for his life. The man startled, about to shoot him, and stopped when he recognized Steve's red, white and blue armor which was distinctive even through the red-shift of the infra-red goggles. Steve used sign language to apprise him of the situation. The soldier used sign language to respond. In front … a dozen dead human drones. Two shape shifters … there … and there. An assortment of grey-skinned drones and human drones still alive, milling about confused now that the command signal was being blocked that controlled them.

"Shape shifters … first," Steve signaled using his hands. "Only shoot drones if a threat." He relayed the information back to the men behind him using the same hand signals, it being impossible to broadcast either radio signals or to have your words heard between the command signal countermeasures and the horrid shrieking noise the devices emitted.

Two black shapes loomed darker against the dark wall. Shape shifters. Fighting the creatures inside the cave was a dicey situation because there was only one way to defeat the creatures. Dismember it into such tiny pieces that there was nothing left for it to regenerate. With an inability to use explosives without collapsing the mountain above them onto their own heads, there was only one way to accomplish this. Up close and personal.

"Bayonets," Steve signaled. Steve slid his shield from where it had been strapped to his back. Behind him, every man in the brigade strapped bayonets onto the muzzle of their specially modified M-17. This was going to be messy.

"Ready," the Recon Seven leader signaled.

The mountain began to rumble. Although he could not _hear _the noise, Steve recognized the vibration from what he had experienced in Yasur volcano. The Chitauri recognized the threat and were firing up the engines. It was only a matter of minutes before the enemy shook off the mountain as though they were a dog shaking off water after coming out of a lake and buried them all alive. From the look of fear in the units eyes, they all recognized something had changed as well.

"Now!" Steve signaled.

He rushed forward, past confused drones the sent in front to be chewed up and spat out as cannon fodder, right towards one of the creatures of nightmare. The thing snapped at him with its enormous, crab-like claws, dozens of smaller claws grabbing at the soldiers who stormed the creature like a wolf-pack, dogging its every move. Further down the cave, a second group of men did the same thing with the second shape-shifter, the creatures surprised that all of a sudden their drones would no longer respond to their commands.

An Army Ranger was slammed back into the wall and did not move. A second one followed, the man twitching in pain. The Chitauri were far stronger than a human, even a human as strong as Steve, but his men had an advantage. For the past several days, he'd been teaching them how to take on one of these bastards. Although not impaired by the same two-and-a-half second time delay that resulted whenever a drone needed to veer off a pre-programmed command protocol, Steve had realized while fighting the shape shifter impersonating his wife that part of the delay was caused by the Chitauri's tendency to think as a hive-mind. A hive acted with the single purpose directed by one entity, like bees responding to their queen. A wolf-pack followed the lead of an alpha, but they also worked independently of one another.

Wolf pack beat bees…

Rocks began to fall from the ceiling. They were nearly out of time. If they didn't get past this obstacle, they would lose their quarry.

A third Ranger was grabbed between two enormous claws and picked up by the neck. Steve rushed forward, his shield swinging straight towards the elbow-joint of the creature's exoskeleton. Although he could not hear the yowl of rage the creature made as he hit it a second time and cut clean through the limb, causing the creature to drop the Ranger before it had killed him, the way it opened its mouth and tried to snap at him told Steve all he needed to know.

All around him, soldiers swarmed around the wounded creature like hungry wolves, stabbing away until at last it fell beneath their bayonets. Hunting knives were pulled out of holsters on their belts, the dismemberment now up close and personal as they slaughtered the creature as though it were a cow or pig, cutting it apart until the pieces were too small to do any harm. Beyond them, a second group of men, this one a unit of Marines, did the same thing with the second shape shifter. Steve signaled the men to carry on, assigning six to remain behind and make sure the befuddled human and grey-skinned drones did not somehow fall back under the Chitauri command. They were under orders to herd all drones, whether grey-skinned or human, out of the tunnels and slap Tony Stark's experimental command signal blocking helmet onto their heads so the Chitauri could not give the death signal.

They resumed their little dance of one group providing cover, the next group slipping past them as they made their way through the caverns. Steve wondered how the other Avengers were doing. These caves appeared to be much more solid than the ones in Yasur. As though this base had been here longer than the one in Vanuatu. The ran into several more groups of drones, all milling about in confusion. More men were assigned to herd them towards the exit. Several more men were wounded when they encountered a second group of shape shifters, four of them this time. They were quickly dispatched, if dismembering a living creature limb-by-limb could ever be considered quick. He was down to his original core Recon Seven platoon when the cavern ahead grew lighter and they emerged into an enormous cavern.

"Holy shit," the Rangers all mouthed at once.

Steve did not need to be able to hear the words to understand what they said, for he said the same thing himself. They stared up, as far up as the eye could see, at an enormous cylindrical cavern. Above them, the top of the mountain was in the process of opening the way that missile silos did on a nuclear warhead. In the middle sat the mothership, exactly like the one they had flushed out of Yasur volcano. Steve had missed the whole 'area 51' aliens mythology while he had been asleep, but the ship looked halfway between the described egg-shape and a flying saucer. It was approximately the same size as a helicarrier, but smooth. A ship designed to travel between the stars, not merely act as a flying airstrip for the military. The sound of the countermeasures was drowned out by the even _louder _sound of whatever propulsion system the Chitauri used to power their ship when they weren't using geothermal energy as a free source of backup power. It was getting ready to lift off.

The crackle of radio communications in his helmet meant the countermeasures did not reach here. It was mostly static, but _some _communications were getting through. Steve signaled his men to send someone back to bring forward the countermeasure … and also that any drone they faced from here on in was likely hostile.

"Entrance?" the Recon Seven leader signaled.

"Don't know," Steve signaled back. "Look." Military hand signals did not afford the complete range of communication that American Sign Language might afford, so he had no way to tell his number two guy that he had never been this close to a mothership before.

"Fan out," the Recon Seven leader signaled. One by one, they began to run around the perimeter of the ship. There was much equipment strewn about, abandoned, but no further shape shifters or drones. Steve looked up. The blast doors at the top were nearly fully opened. As soon as the ship could fit, he knew they would lose it. They needed to find a way in.

A Ranger waving from further up the cavern caught his attention. A lead? He burst into a sprint, his shield strapped to his arm. An air vent to the outside world. Outside, not in. Not helpful, but at least they could ensure whichever Avenger-led team was crawling down the narrow access port would not get ambushed when they stuck out their heads. Steve assigned two men to guard the hole. Unlike Yasur, which had exploded when the enormous mothership had sucked dry the steam energy from the relatively small stratovolcano, the Long Valley supervolcano had nearly unlimited power. He hoped to hell the damned thing didn't blow.

Another hand signal. Another vent. Outside, not in. Not helpful. He assigned to more men to guard it.

A third. Paydirt! A hatch was in the process of sliding shut when one of the Rangers jammed a metal crate into the entrance before it closed all the way. Now all they had to do was force it open. The ship began to shudder. The blast doors above hit their widest point and stopped. It was ready to go. It was now, or never. Steve grabbed the hatch and bellowed with rage, pouring every ounce of hatred and worry into his muscles as he forced open the hatch. Bernice was somewhere inside and this door was standing in his way. With a howl, he got the door open far enough to slip inside. The box now out of the way, the door slammed shut behind him.

He was trapped. Inside the ship. Before he could even get to his feet, two arms grabbed him off the floor and threw him against the wall. His ears rang as the creature spoke to him.

"You do not belong. You must die."

He stared up in horror at a scarred, brutally handsome face. Despite the ocular drilled into one eye, the wires which ran out of the creatures head, the metal arm which picked him up a second time and held him by the throat, steel fingers strangling the life out of him, he would know that face anywhere.

"Bucky?"

No! It was a shape shifter. It had taken this form to confuse him. It _had_ to be a shape shifter. He had watched Bucky Barnes die.

"You do not belong. You must die."

The creature had no emotion on its face whatsoever. Shape shifters exhibited emotion, although usually that emotion was contempt. Even the drones exhibited _some _emotion, but this monster had none. It acted as though it were made of iron, the same as the arm which bent to pick him up a third time. Was it a class of shape shifter they had not yet encountered? A guardian-class of some sort? Whatever it was, it was inhumanly strong. As strong as _him, _made stronger by the robotics which enhanced its physiology.

_'Get off your rear end, Rogers and fight!' _he thought to himself. '_This is -not- Bucky!'_

The creature threw him against the wall a third time, but Steve pushed past his disbelief and rolled, scrambling for the shield which had fallen to the floor. He swung it up, straight at the metal arm which reached for him. Sparks flew off the creature's metal arm as the shield skidded down it, the arm made of some unknown alloy that could only be lightly damaged by his shield. The creature picked him up and held him in front of it, not a single hint of emotion in the creatures face.

Steve swung up his shield, straight for the elbow-joint where he knew, whatever form they took, the shape shifters were vulnerable. He was unable to build any momentum. The shield hit the elbow joint, but not hard enough to sever the limb as he had intended. The creature dropped him, the metal hand flexing at the end of the metal arm. Steve stared in disbelief at what dripped down onto the deck from the elbow joint where he had just cut off a pound of flesh.

Blood?

It was red. Not black like a shape shifter. It was human blood?

His eyes shot up to make eye contact with the man standing over him. For some reason he had machines drilled right into his brain to control him instead of the other methods the Chitauri used to control drones. No! It was impossible?

Maybe?

Jonathan Hart had been born in 1809, and yet his body had only been a century old when Steve had killed the poor old man who had been seized to be a drone.

This was no drone!

"Bucky?" Steve pleaded. "Bucky! Don't you remember me?"

Wounded or not, the mechanical arm reached towards him and grabbed him by the throat. It picked him up at eye level. Beneath them, Steve could feel the ship begin to lift off.

"Bucky!"

"You do not belong. You must …"

The creature paused mid-sentence. It cocked its head to one side, not really watching Steve, but listening to something which must have been said inside of its head.

"A new queen arises." Bucky looked at Steve, _still _no recognition in his eyes. "She calls me to her side."

The door opened behind him. Air rushed in. The ship was already a good sixty feet off the ground and rising out of the silo to join the advancing fleet travelling from some distant star. Without a hint of emotion, Bucky Barnes tossed him out the hatch of the Chitauri mother ship and shut the door.

Steve landed on the ground below with a thud. For a moment, he lost consciousness. As the Tweetie-birds in his head cleared, he lay on his back and stared up into the sky where the retreating mother ship would now face the full force of the United States military, all under orders by _him _to shoot the ship down at all costs.

He had failed.

He rose to his knees and reached up towards the doomed ship which had fighter jets and B-2 bombers swarming around it like hornets.

"Bernice!" he shouted, his words echoing off the walls of the empty silo. His whole body shuddered as a week's worth of pent-up tears, the ones he'd been keeping at bay with false promises of rescuing her, finally let go. He had killed her.

"Bucky," he whispered. As if the creatures hadn't cut out his heart by taking his wife, they had poured salt in the wound by revealing that, all this time, they'd had his best friend. His best friend who had not recognized him.

It was the Hulk who got to him first, popping out the narrow vent and ignoring the soldiers stationed to guard it. Instead of attacking, that small portion of the green man who was still Bruce Banner recognized something of itself in the man kneeling in the middle of the empty chamber, bent over his shield in grief. He sat down on the ground next to him, his green brow furrowed in curiosity.

The Hulk pointed towards the sky.

"All gone."

If he didn't know any better, the Hulk looked sad.

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_Note: Surprise! __Bet most of you didn't see THAT coming! (Except for those of you who questioned why Bucky wasn't in Valhalla _

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	70. Chapter 70

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to __**AoiKuroNekoSan, Lollypops101, Qweb, Marz1, Guest, yifrodit, Jelsemium, Neko Tiger, LEPrecon, LoLoLaLoco, Penny Tortoiseshell, blown-transistor, lazarus73, ciro, Adamantium Rose, Prospero Hibiki, Mystewitch, spiffymac0617, **__and __**Arrow the Wolf.**_

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Chapter 70

A rock. Worn smooth by the water that flowed around it. Careful. Don't let them know you can still think. Just peek … and hide. Careful. Careful. Remember what you see. Touch upon those minds that are still curious. Assess. But don't push. Remember the landscape the aliens don't realize you can see. Remember where the other minds are located so you can find them again when you need them.

Memorize…

A change. The firing of the ship's engines. At last! He was coming for her!

"Bernice," the Friend said. "It is time."

Hands touched her body. Hands touched her body many times per day, making sure the inconvenient shell which housed the biomechanical computer the Other had drilled electrodes into was still in good working condition. Caretakers. Caretakers as Count Rugen had been, too timid and subdued through eons of selective breeding to do what human nature dictated. To rebel against the masters.

_'You must -act- like you are about to lead the swarm,' _the Friend said. _'Your mind has some of the elements of hers. Act the part, and the drones will choose which queen they wish to follow.'_

Bernice opened her eyes. Grey eyes stared back at her, surprised. She suppressed the rush of adrenaline that threatened to make her heart race too fast, alerting the system she could think. She had touched this creature's mind before. She uplinked to the network that had been drilled into her brain, a biomechanical machine, far faster than any mechanical computer humanity had ever built. She remembered the words of the Friend, what she had to say to get the other drones to obey her. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she pictured Seven-of-Nine from Star Trek Voyager and did her best impersonation of her flat affect.

_'Bow to me now, humble creature. It is time to swarm.'_

The grey-skinned alien hesitated, confused at the sudden release of the command signal she was able to deflect and give the creature an opportunity to think for itself.

"Untie me," she said aloud. "And I will lead you to a _new _hive.

She forced her heart rate to remain even, her voice not to stutter even though she was terrified. This creature was a slave. No different than Count Rugen had been before Steve had freed him. She was giving it a choice. Serve her. Or the Chitauri queen who was hive leader of this particular ship. The drones had been conditioned to follow the strongest mind. The ship vibrated beneath her. She had to take control while Steve was distracting them or they would not stand a chance. The creature wavered. Bernice uploaded an image of Count Rugen, sitting on the floor of his cell with her, coloring pictures of flowers. The image was a memory of sitting close enough that the prison cell which surrounded him was not obvious.

The grey-skinned alien chose. It began to untie the restraints which kept her strapped into the machine. Bernice tried not to scream as she moved and wires that had been drilled not only into her brain, but every major nerve juncture within her body, held her fast. She pictured Doctor Banner and how much trouble he took to school his external expression to look like a mild-mannered fuddy-dud when in reality he was always angry inside. She forced her face to mimic a similar expression as she unclipped the wires from the jacks that had been drilled into her arms, legs and spine, but left the ones tied to the steel skull-band so the hive would not realize she was disconnected.

_'Remember your promise,_' the Friend. _'I helped you, you help me.'_

_'You have my word,' _Bernice told the Friend.

The shape shifters had not yet detected she was free. Steve's assault had diverted their attention. She needed to move fast. The ship shuddered beneath her stasis pod like a dragon awakening from a long slumber. All around her, she could sense the inquiry of other minds, other minds like _hers _who still possessed enough faculties to hide their thoughts deep within their minds. She felt the command to add her brainpower to the hive. She did as the Friend had taught. To compute the data which came into her mind, but change the sequence just a little. Subtle. Subtle. Give them the information they asked for, but just that little bit off so that the people at the other end of whatever they were asking her to compute had a chance to escape.

No shape shifter had accessed her memories _directly_ since the night Steve had killed the shape shifter who had assumed her form. The Chitauri needed to remain in contact with the mind of whatever form they were impersonating or they could not hold it, the same as they could only assume the shape of a human who they, personally had stung. The Friend had explained to her that the shape shifters needed to take a sample of the hypothalamus of the brain of any creature before they could assume their shape, the same place they needed to deliver the nanovirus-laden venom.

Oh! God! The memory of that moment caused her heart rate to race. Thank god she'd disconnected the wires connected to the electrode that monitored her heart and connected it to a 'dummy' machine.

_'Are you sure Mr. Hart is gone?'_ she asked the Friend.

_'He has gone up to meet the advancing fleet,' _the Friend said. _'His orders are to destroy this world. You must stop him.'_

_'Who are you … really?'_

_'A friend. Just remember that you gave me your word.'_

_'How do you know I will keep it?'_

_'Because you are Steve Roger's wife, and -he- always keeps his word.'_

Bernice sensed the demand of the hive grow stronger, computing the trajectory to fly out of the lair this hive had dug into an active volcano, she wasn't certain exactly which one other than the images the Friend had helped her relay to Steve six days ago. The hive mind grew more demanding. She had to be careful to keep part of her mind doing what they asked of it. Normally the masters would notice right away if a drone was not operating at full capacity and make a decision whether to scrap that component of the living computer server or if it merely needed adjusting. But the masters were distracted by her husband and the Avengers who were coming for her.

She had cooked this plan up with the Friend to institute their escape. This mother ship was the first one which had landed hundreds of years ago from the world beyond. All ships which had been created _since _then were built _here._ Each time their numbers had grown sufficiently to swarm, they had found a new volcano and created a new hive. The Chitauri did not build their bases on volcanoes because they needed the energy. They built their bases on volcanoes because mother ships were just that. Mother. Ships. Incubators. Where the heat of the sleeping volcano warmed the female's eggs until she had hatched enough to man a new base.

It was the reason even drones were programmed to obey the Chitauri command to swarm. It was part of the creatures evolutionary mechanism to survive. Grandma Peggy standing in front of a map. Steve had sketched an invasion plan that was already well underway. Red Skull's Hydra fortresses had merely been Phase II.

The grey skinned alien gave her an inquiring look. It reminded her a bit of Count Rugen, although this one was a bit taller and thinner than Steve's alien friend. It was a good thing she was familiar with the grey skinned aliens because it made her academy award winning act that much more believable.

_'Thank you,' _Bernice said in her mind. _'Picture your mind as a rock. Let the thoughts of the others flow around it without catching. Go only to those you know you can trust and ask them to come. The next hive will be better than this one.'_

Images. A query. Would she kill him if he refused?

_'No. It is your choice.'_

The creature made up its mind. It lumbered over to where other grey-skinned drones tended the other human computers, strapped into hellish beds that reminded her of Robin Cooke's book Coma. These creatures had been born into slavery, as had their ancestor's ancestors' ancestor. The Friend had said they could not understand the concept of freedom. They only understood there were hives that killed quickly for thinking. Or hives that were less militant than others. The creatures had grown up with a mythology of serving a less bloodthirsty queen. It was that mythology she appealed to now. Seventeen grey-skinned creatures lumbered back, their grey eyes curious.

"I want you to untie all of the other computers, both human and alien," Bernice said aloud. "Get them ready to swarm. But do not force them awake until I am ready to move."

The creatures nodded and began to do as she had asked.

_'You must summons the guardian hybrids,' _the Friend said. _'If you can convince -them- to swarm with you, you have a chance.'_

Bernice formed a picture in her mind of a face she had cursed every waking moment since the day she had found out the creature was an imposter and tried to kill her husband.

_'She is no more at fault for what was done to him than YOU are,' _the Friend said.

_'How can you be sure?' _Bernice formed the thought.

_'Just trust me on this,' _the Friend said.

She had never met the _real _person whose form that shape shifter had assumed, but the Friend had showed her where in the landscape the Chitauri had logged her mind. This drone had been assigned a different designation than she had. A guardian drone. A human with physical characteristics the Chitauri valued too much to simply use as cannon fodder as they did the battle class drones, both human and grey-skinned. She touched upon the drone's mind and repeated the offer she had made the maintenance drones.

_'Bow to me now, humble creature. It is time to swarm.'_

This drone had never met her and did not know who she was. It had been taken before she had even begun dating her husband. The Friend had recommended she not attempt to contact it until her body had been freed. But she needed protection to take on the queen.

_'I get conflicting commands,' the guardian drone said._

_'You must choose which queen you wish to follow.' _Bernice said the line the Friend had said was programmed into _all _drones the Chitauri absorbed. '_It is time to swarm. Come with me and I will elevate you within the new hive.'_

Bernice waited. She could sense the battle drone probe her mind.

_'Your mind is stronger than the old queens. I will help you perform the cull.'_

Bernice tried not to tremble as the door at the end of the vast room full of computer-class drones opened and the guardian drone walked in. Although the Friend had sworn this was not the shape shifter who had tried to kill her husband, one mistake would end up in not only her death, but also every single drone who had so far agreed to follow her, both grey-skinned alien and human. The drone marched up to stand in front of her, its eyes vacant. If it sensed her fear, she was a dead woman.

"Do you remember your human name?" Bernice asked.

"Agent Romanov," the red-headed woman said, her voice emotionless and flat.

"Good," Bernice said. "You will show me where in the landscape the other battle drones are located so I can touch their minds."

"They defend the ship," not-quite-Natasha said as flatly as the voice on a GPS unit in a car. "We are under attack."

"This attack is part of my plan," Bernice said. "You will show me how to summons them so they can choose which hive they wish to follow."

It had been easiest for her to form a slender uplink to Agent Romanov's mind while she had been pretending to be asleep because, as the newest guardian-class drone on the ship, her mind still had the jagged edges that, in a less valuable drone, would have resulted in their death. But Agent Romanov _had _been absorbed into the hive mind. Her neural pathways had resisted being overwritten, but in the end she had succumbed. She had succumbed because she did _not _have enough of what the shape shifters called 'deviant' DNA to overwrite their code as Bernice had instinctively done and bend it to serve her purposes.

Bernice could feel the ship begin to heave itself into the air. Metal creaked as, for the first time in hundreds of years, the ship became airborne. Agent Romanov showed her where in the landscape the other guardian class drones were located. She got an image of American soldiers swarming the ship. One of the soldiers had just gotten on board. That would complicate things if she did not order them to kill him. A kill order was expected. The only way to circumvent the control signal was to hijack it and give those orders herself. The Friend had taught her how to subtly manipulate the command protocols without causing a paradox which would cause them to question the conflicting orders and alert the masters that she was about to launch a coup.

_'Just throw him out the door,' _Bernice said. _'And then come to me. It is time to start the cull.'_

The unknown guardian signaled acknowledgment.

Bernice prayed the ship was not so far off the ground that the soldier had not survived.

X

X

_Note: So there … is everybody happy now? Natasha is still alive. And her mind is 'still jagged.' I'll let you interpret that the way you will _

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	71. Chapter 71

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to __**Qweb, Francisdrake, ladymoonsoar, Saint Exupery, Penny Tortoiseshell, spiffymac0617, Kelly Jo, kogouma, Canyouholdballoons, m1dnight217, RipplesOfAqua, Cotton Strings, Nelo Tiger, yifrodit, Adamantium Rose, Mystewitch, M.H.T. of R., Prospero Hibiki, LoLoLaLoco, **__and__** blown-transistor.**_

_My apologizes for the lengthening time between updates. As I warned people when they were commenting at my updating speed back in early August, work slows down for around 6 weeks every summer and then picks up like racehorses out of the starting gate around the third week of August. Well … the ponies are running and not giving the Captain a lot of time to chatter in my brain. But here's the next update! Thanks for being so patient, everybody!_

X

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Chapter 71

"Rodriguez?"

"¡Hola! Sólo un minuto. Tengo que bajar el televisor. Es demasiado fuerte."

Steve listened to the sound of a New York Jets playing in the background suddenly get turned down. Rodriguez fumbled with the telephone before lifting it to his ear once more. " Lo siento. Sí?"

"Rodriguez? It's Steve. Steve Rogers."

"Ahh! Señor Rogers! We have worried about you! How are you and Miss Bernice?"

"Rodriguez. There's no time to talk. Listen. I want you to take your wife and get out of the city. Right now."

"¿Qué?" Rodriguez asked. "But it is almost Christmas. Where would we go?"

Steve glanced up at the screens which surrounded the command center of the alien mothership Nick Fury had managed to sneak up on at the Zuni-Bandera Lava Field in New Mexico. The other two motherships had escaped, although the Chinese, Russians, and tiny Chile had also captured three more motherships from the simultaneous raids, bringing the total stolen to four. Another seven had been destroyed, nuclear fallout from two warheads Russia and China had detonated to take out two of them sprinkling North Korea and Japan with radiation. That left four motherships, two command carriers, a converted Russian icebreaker-turned-heliship, and a Chinese heli-battleship against the 36 motherships that had just travelled across the stars and 12 they had flushed out of their volcanic lairs, making the odds 7:48 Less than that if they had to pursue the motherships any higher than 30,000 feet. 4:48. Their chances of fending off this invasion were slim.

Bernice's mothership had escaped, much to his relief and shame. Relief because he still had hope she was still alive. Shame because he had failed to not only to capture the ship, but to remove the threat of it from the armada that was now lining up to attack Earth. For all he knew, she had not even _been_ onthat ship. They had not yet deciphered all of the symbols which marked the controls or streamed down the side of the display screen in the Chitauri language, but Count Rugen had translated enough to let them know the aliens planning on taking out all of Earth's major cities.

"Rodriguez, do you trust me?" Steve asked.

"Si," Rodriguez said. "You know I do."

"Then just do as I say," Steve said. "Take your family and get out of the city. Right now."

"Señor Rogers," Rodriguez's voice trembled. "You are scaring me."

"I know," Steve said. "Please. You guys are the closest thing to family I have left in this world. Grab a blanket and some food and get out of the city. Within twenty minutes, the President is going to make an announcement. If you wait until then, it will be too late. There's no way the subways can carry that many people out of the city."

"Is this thing to do with Bernice's boss-man?" Rodriguez asked. "The Iron Man?"

"Yes, Rodriguez," Steve sighed with relief, aware that Rodriguez only had an inkling of what he really did for work. "The Iron Man said to get out of the city. He is evacuating Stark Tower as we speak."

Steve glanced over to where Tony Stark was frantically trying to figure out how to get the ship's engines to fire. Twenty-seven soldiers had died taking out the pilot, a much larger, and more ferocious version of the Chitauri that Count Rugen had called 'the queen.' The Count was knowledgeable about the inner communications systems, but no living grey-skinned drone had ever piloted a Chitauri mothership.

"I take my Esmerelda and we leave," Rodriguez said. "Call my family as we go. You call me later, tell me what is wrong. Bueno?"

"Si, bueno," Steve said. "I will call you later."

He hung up the phone, and then pressed the call button and dialed the next number down on his list. He got two more calls before the test pattern from the Emergency Broadcast System came onto the television. He was out of time. He just hoped Rodriguez and Thelma got out of the city before the panicked throngs clogged the exits.

"Everybody, listen up!" Nick Fury bellowed. "This is it."

The room was deathly silent as the President of the United States came on all networks. They all knew first-hand what the president was going to say, but somehow, it did not feel _real _until the announcement came from the President's mouth. It was real now. Earth was under attack.

Tony Stark strutted around the bridge like a maestro conducting an orchestra, an army of both civilian and military electrical and aerospace engineers pouring over the equipment trying to wrap their heads around what would make this bird fly. Live feeds were open between the other three captured motherships, a small army of translators furiously relaying information back and forth. An image danced into his mind. He looked up to meet Count Rugen's worried grey eyes, the heavy helmet Tony Stark had rigged to protect his vulnerable limbic system from a Chitauri kill command making him look like an astronaut.

Image. _They come._

Steve glanced up to where blinking red lights on maps of the Earth showed the position of each mothership. They had finished moving into formation around the planet and were now beginning to descend into the atmosphere. Count Rugen walked up and pointed to one of the Earth cities depicted on that map. Los Angeles. He listened to what was being broadcast, and began to point to other major Earth cities. New York. Washington. Chicago. Houston. Beijing. Moscow. London. Paris. And twenty-seven other Earth cities. An errant thought went through his mind. Why not forty-eight?

"This is it!" Nick Fury shouted. "Avengers … to the USS Sherman! Until we can figure out how to make these motherships fly, we're going to have to hit them with what we have! It's Plan B! Plan B!"

They had already been briefed on both plans. Plan B was now Plan A. Hit them with traditional military resources. Until they figured out how to fire up the mothership's engines and access their weapons systems, it was the best they could do. Tony Stark looked across the room and nodded at the other Avengers, his dark eyes glistening with emotion. They needed Iron Man. But they needed the Tony Stark here where he could do the most good even more. Colonel James Rhodes would rendezvous with the Avengers over Los Angeles, the closest city on the Chitauri hit list, and ride shotgun with the War Machine suit.

His heart racing, he ran through the bowels of the mothership to the launch bay, where Stark's engineers had figured out how to release the safety protocols on the alien gliders and freed up thousands of them for use against the alien armada. The gliders were rigged to self-destruct, but luckily they had already figured out how to disable the self-destruct command. Zipping out of the open cone of the fake mountain the Chitauri had built to hide their mothership on the alien glider, Steve fell into line behind the other Avengers and raced towards the USS Sherman floating above the sleeping supervolcano.

X

"You know how to fly one of these things?" Clint asked.

Steve looked up at the F-35B Lightning II. The last time SHIELD had offered him one of these, he had respectfully declined, preferring the older, comparatively simpler technology of a Harrier jet. With his jet now destroyed, it was time to come into the modern age. Bernice. She had acted as a bridge for him across time, coaxing him to try new things without becoming overwhelmed. He had taken on new technology for her. He would do so once again.

"How hard can it be?" Steve asked.

"It's just a V/STOL with a hop and a ski to take off, Sir," the ATO shouted above the sound of the engines warming up. "Other than that, it behaves pretty much the same. This little lady is much better behaved than a Harrier jet once you get her off the ground."

He hoped so.

"What's our ETA?" Steve asked the airman.

"The Sherman? Or this pretty little bird?" the airman asked.

"The Sherman?"

"The Sherman is still a good forty-five minutes out," the airman said. "This little lady will be there ten minutes once you get her off the runway."

"It's payback time," Clint said, his expression grim. He clutched the strap of his quiver, grenade-loaded arrowheads lined up neatly on the chest harness like rivets.

Steve looked to where the other pilots were saddling up the assortment of fighter jets the Sherman carried. Thor looked lost and lonely standing amongst the fighter jets without Tony Stark there to fight at his side, Mjolnir clutched in his fist. Bruce Banner walked over and began talking to him, their words lost in the roar of the fighter jets. The two locked arms, forearm to elbow. Banner slapped Thor on the back and headed over to one of the Ospreys that would transport him to the drop point. They would get Banner in close, the Hulk would do the rest.

Giving Clint a nod, he climbed into the seat and strapped on the harness. Clint jogged over to one of the twin-rotor MV22B Osprey helicopters which could hover and let him shoot out the back tailgate to provide cover for slower-moving troops upon the ground. Ground troops piled into the Ospreys laden with M-17's, rocket launchers, and any other toy either the military or Tony Stark had laying around in his weapons lab. Nothing was being held back. If they didn't fend off this mothership, four million people would die.

Every man on this helicarrier stared toward the west at the roiling black sky, a hellish storm cloud spawning lightning and tornadoes as the mother ship finished breaching the atmosphere and moved across the desert towards her hapless target. Already, every asset they had in the area was airborne, shooting at the thing. A swarm of smaller vessels moved around the mothership. Leviathans. The mothership hadn't even reached Los Angeles yet and already the destruction had begun. They needed to get there … yesterday.

"Sherman, this is Red Leader," Steve called. "We're ready to go."

"God bless," Nick Fury said.

"Red team, this is the Cap," Steve called to his troops. "Time to go."

Pulling back the controls for the V/STOL engine, he waited for the flag from the controller on the ground and hit the throttle. It was just as the ATO had said. A V/STOL, with a hop and a skip to take advantage of the short runway. Behind him, the other assets lifted off and fell into neat formation on either side of him. It would take a bit longer for the Ospreys to get there, but they were right behind him. A crack of lightning tickled his plane, turbulence causing it to rock as Thor shot past him. Steve aimed the F35 towards the nearest Leviathan. It was chasing an F-22 Raptor, the armor-clad space whale snapping at the warplane as though it were a tasty snack.

"Red Team, this is Red Leader," Steve called to the four planes flying in formation on either side of him. "Let's give that pretty little bird some help?"

"Red Team Two, engaged."

"Red Team Three, engaged."

"Red Team Four, engaged."

"Red Team Five, engaged. Show us the way!"

"Remember what we said," Steve called. "We have to work together like a wolf pack. It's nothing but a big, dumb animal with monkey on its back with a whip. Panic the Leviathan and the monkey loses control."

Beneath them, the emptiness of the desert gave way to the repetitive squares of Los Angeles suburbs. The mothership was almost there, but it was well protected by a dozen Leviathans. The Leviathan they tailed snapped at the tail of the F-22 that had engaged it from Naval Air Station Lemoore. The pilot spun the plane, narrowly missing being snatched out of the air. Steve hit the throttle and darted right in the path of the frantic Raptor, causing the Leviathan to snap at _him _instead of the F-22, giving the jet a chance to escape. The Leviathan was chasing _him _now.

"Red Leader, this is Red Three, I'm coming in at eleven o'clock," Red Team Three called. "You rock, I'll roll."

Steve counted the seconds until Red Team Three shot just over the Leviathan's head, causing the creature to jerk in that direction. He banked straight up, the agreed-upon protocol so that the three other jets screaming in to do the same thing would not crash into him. The G-force caused him to momentarily become light-headed, the force of the sudden shift in direction plastering him backwards against the seat. He stared down upside-down at the undulating Leviathan snapping at Red Team Five, dangerously close

"Red Three, this is Red Five, coming in from one o'clock. Let's do the Tango." Red Five repeated the exact same maneuver Red Three had just done.

Steve reached the apex of the sharpest loop-di-loo the Lightning was capable of and began his descent.

"Red Leader, this is Blue Leader," Clint called from a different battle group. "We have dropped the Green Man. Repeat. We have dropped the Green Man." The Hulk was on his way.

"Roger, Blue Leader," Steve called. "Red Team Two, Red Team Four, ready to do the Tango."

"We've got your back, Sir," the two pilots said almost simultaneously.

All three jets opened fire. The Leviathan forgot all about Red Five and began to thrash. Red Three finished his loop-di-loo and joined the other three fighter jets that were harassing the space whale. Dozens of grey-skinned warrior-class drones on gliders were released from pods embedded in the armor the Leviathan wore. As soon as they cleared, the much more maneuverable gliders began shooting at them. Steve knew they were slaves, being controlled by puppet-masters located on the mother ship, but there was nothing that could be done for them. The gliders were maneuverable and fast. They had to shoot them down.

"It's jitterbug time," Steve shouted. "Let's show these guys a how to dance!"

Three of the Lightning's broke formation, speeding off into three different directions. As expected, the gliders hesitated. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand. Steve and his wingman, Red Three, opened fire with their machine guns on the gliders in that two-and-a-half second delay time while their command protocols communicated with whoever the puppetmaster was on the mothership and got directions about which airplane they were supposed to chase. The grey-skinned drones were poorly armored. Dozens of them were shot right off of their gliders.

"Whoo-hoo!" Red Three shouted. "Whip me some alien ass!"

Steve didn't feel very victorious. Was this what they were doing to Bernice?

"They're slaves. They didn't have any choice in the matter. Kill them. But let's not celebrate their deaths, okay? It's what separates us from them."

There was silence on the radio channel. Every man on this mission knew his wife was being held prisoner on one of these motherships … and possibly had been turned into a drone.

The Leviathan finished its turn and began to head straight for them. There were only about a dozen gliders left guarding it now, but any one of those gliders could take out one of his team.

"My apologies, Sir," Red Three called. "Let's go kill us some space whales?"

"Red Team, this is Red Leader," Steve called. "We've got to keep shaking things up so the puppetmasters don't catch onto which dance moves we're using. That whale's coming straight at us. Let's play chicken!"

"Chicken, Sir," the other pilots called.

They moved back into formation, a neat goose-like vee as they moved straight for the Leviathan like two great beasts playing chicken. The gliders buzzed around it, moving into their own pre-programmed formation. Now that he knew what he was looking for, all thanks to Bernice's sharp eyes and tons of computer analysis of video footage from the _first _alien invasion by JARVIS, he knew what formation the aliens were lining up to pull.

"It's paso doble," Steve called. "I repeat. Paso doble. Red Two and Three, you escobilla. Red Four, you get to do percussion. Red Five, you're with me. We're going to zapateado."

It was ironic that while Steve could barely dance anything except a tap dance learned from watching a cartoon mouse in real life, Tony Stark had named evasive maneuvers after different kinds of dance steps. Steve made a mental note to ask Bernice to teach him some of them once he found her and set her free.

Red Two and Three swooped just under the front of the charging Leviathan, crossed flight paths mere yards from one another, and shot up to either side, criss-crossing a second time at the top before going into a loop-di-loo. Red Four swayed back and forth headed straight for a flyover of the top of the Leviathan, correcting as necessary to avoid the gliders and the snap of the creature's gigantic maw. Steve and Red Five zig-zagged straight towards the left and right of the gigantic beast, opened fire on the hesitating gliders whose puppetmasters couldn't figure out which target to pursue, criss-crossed just underneath the beast, and then loop-di-loo'd down, racing past Red Two and Three who were still on their way up. In the meantime, Red Four had circled around and was now right on the tail of the gigantic space whale, which was totally unaware it was now dead.

"Red Four firing missiles," Red Four called. He set off both rockets.

"Get clear, get clear!" Steve shouted. All five fighter jets veered off in different directions, the three remaining gliders hot on their tales as the rockets hit the enormous space whale and exploded.

The rear half of the creature exploded. Armor plating fell off of the creature, towards the ground. The gigantic maw opened and closed twice, and then moved no more as the creature fell, what was left of its tail first, backwards towards the ground.

"Let's get rid of these remaining gliders," Steve called. They were well over downtown Los Angeles right now, the enormous egg-shaped mothership floating above the city. Steve opened fire with machine guns when one of the gliders crossed his path, shooting it out of the sky. The other two gliders were similarly dispatched by two of the other Red Team fighter jets.

This was his first good look from the air at one of these ships. Charred metal ran along one side of the ship, an enormous hole towards the end of it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw lightning erupt from the sky. Thor. Taking down a Leviathan with Mjolnir. He had no idea where Clint was at the moment. He felt comfortable fighting with the regular enlisted soldiers, but some part of him missed what it felt like when the Avengers came together as a team.

"Sir?" Red Two asked. "Did we already hit these ships with nukes and somebody not tell us?"

Steve examined the wounded ship. It was enormous, far larger than any weapon _they _had short of a Jericho missile, a series of bombs launched simultaneously from a B-2B Stealth bomber, or a nuclear warhead could cause. Their job was to clear the Leviathans so the Stealth bombers had a chance. All around them, other teams of fighter jets were swarming the Leviathans and their contingent of gliders. Some teams were successfully undertaking similar maneuvers and shooting Leviathans down, but other teams weren't doing so well. Teams that he or one of the other SHIELD-briefed military leaders had not had time to personally train and teach them the steps to the 'dances' they had cooked up to bring the Chitauri slave-soldiers down.

"Sherman, this is Red Team Leader," Steve called. "When did the B2-B's hit the mothership?"

"They haven't," Nick Fury called. "Count Rugen said … we think he said … he thinks the reason they are here is because they lost some battle someplace else. In space. A race of aliens called the Kree."

"That's what Natashimposter said in the video to the Chitauri they killed," Steve said. "Too bad they didn't finish them off for us."

"Count Rugen said … we think he said … it's hard to tell. Right now he's trying to convince your wife's friend Jacquie to sit down in that seat we dragged that Chitauri queen-thing out of. It's still got bug-guts all over it. He's not making a lot of sense."

Steve watched the Hulk leap up out of nowhere and grab a Leviathan by the tail. The thing turned, snapping at what was, compared to the enormous space whale, a gnat, and began to bite at its own tail, shaking gliders from its back before they were ready to deploy. The Hulk leaped through the air, from the creatures tail to the top of its gigantic maw, and began to punch the creature in the head.

"Sherman, this is Red Leader," Steve called. "I've got to go help out a friend."

"Sherman's ETA is twenty-three minutes," Fury called. "The minute we get in range, we're going to be launching Jericho missiles at that thing. Be ready to bug out when we give the command."

"Roger," Steve called. He turned back to his team. "Red Team, this is Red Team Leader. Let's keep those gliders off our green friend until he brings down that ship for us. Stay out of smash range. The green man isn't too particular about whose toys he breaks."

Red Team repeated a variation of the maneuver they had pulled earlier to confuse the Chitauri puppet masters pulling the strings, only a slight variation in their moves to delay the amount of time the aliens could adapt and program in a command protocol that could anticipate their maneuver and counteract it. All teams were under strict orders to vary their offensive maneuvers as much as possible to delay the inevitable as long as they could. Once the Chitauri realized there was order to what they were doing, their command protocols could make their drones react far faster than any human could do.

All around them, gliders were shooting at civilians running in terror on the ground. Leviathans that weren't being harassed by fighter jets deliberately rammed buildings, trying to wreak as much destruction as possible. The mothership slid into position right over the most densely populated portion of the downtown area and hovered to a stop. The Hulk finally overcame the Leviathan upon whose back he rode and forced the thing to sink to the ground, the dying beast flailing like a fish out of water. Red Team took on a second Leviathan, and then a third. There were too many of them!

"Sir?" Red Three called. "What's that thing glowing on the underside of the mother ship?"

A strange protrusion had come out of the bottom of the ship and was beginning to glow with a blue-white light. He was no expert on Chitauri weaponry, but whatever it was, it looked vaguely familiar. The memory danced through his mind. The weapon mounted on the small aircraft created by Red Skull to each take out a city on the eastern seaboard. The remaining Leviathans and all of their accompanying gliders suddenly broke off whatever they were doing and made haste away from the epicenter of the ship.

"It's some sort of doomsday weapon!" Steve shouted. "Move into formation! Behind me! We've got to shoot it down!"

"Red Two, got your back."

"Red Three, by your side."

"Red Four, moving into position now."

"Red Five … I'm kind of busy, Sir. Got one on my tail."

Steve glanced to see which F-35B was closest to Red Five. "Red Three … help him out! Two and Four … you're with me. Right echelon!"

The two fighter jets moved in to his right, staggered behind him so that one jets nose was lined up with his tail, while the third jet lined up at the second jets tail. It was a battle formation which afforded each member of the team optimal visibility while affording each the opportunity to provide the other jets some degree of protection. Steve maneuvered the joystick for the missile guidance system of his second missile to lock onto the glowing weapon. They raced towards the glowing protrusion.

"I have missile lock on the target," Red Two called.

"I do too," Red Four called.

As he watched, he could see the thing reach some sort of critical mass.

"Fire now, fire now!" Steve shouted. He pushed the fire button on his own missile.

"Missile away!" Red Two shouted.

"Missile away!" Red Four shouted.

Three missiles raced toward the glowing doomsday weapon.

A scream came over the radio.

"Team Leader, Team Leader," Red Three shouted. "We just lost Red Five."

Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. The missiles sped towards the target, but Steve could already tell they were too late.

"Get the hell out of here!" he shouted.

With a pulse, the doomsday weapon fired. White-hot light shot down to the city below, incinerating everything in its path. A mushroom cloud sped towards them, faster than they could get the fighter jets out of the way of the concussive impact of an explosive weapon that had the near power of a nuclear warhead, knocking their ships right out of the sky.

An electromagnetic pulse…

All of the electronics on his plane suddenly went dead…

The engine went dead…

His plane slowly stopped moving and began to drop out of the sky. Fighter jets were basically rockets with wings barely large enough to keep the planes aloft. Without the engines, they had little to keep them airborne. He called 'mayday' into his radio, but the EM pulse from the exploding Chitauri weapon had knocked out his communications. He tugged up on the flight controls, trying to force the short-winged bird to glide, but it was like steering the plane through mud. The ground raced up towards him. They were over the city and there was no safe place for him to land. Abandoned cars clogged the roadway, people having jumped into their cars to flee the city the moment the President had announced they were facing an alien invasion, and then abandoned them the moment they realized Los Angeles was a confirmed target. Interstate 5 was clogged with cars, but it was the closest thing he could maneuver his wounded jet to that wasn't a building.

Gliders raced after him, moving in for the kill. If he hit the eject button too soon, they would simply shoot him out of the sky.

The ground raced up towards him, welcoming him to its bosom. Welcoming him to his death.

Not again!

Moments before the jet slammed into the ground, he hit the eject button. The seat threw him clear just as the F-35B slammed into a row of abandoned cars. The seat flew up a few dozen yards. He could feel the seat hit its apex and begin to descend. Not nearly enough height. He was a dead man.

He yanked on the parachute handle and prayed. The parachute opened, but it was far too late. The ground raced up toward him far too quickly for him to survive.

He smacked into the roof of a tractor trailer whose box was comprised of some sort of slats, still entombed in the seat.

Pain.

An foul stench overwhelmed his senses.

Everything went black.

X

_Note: a reader asked me why I chose 'Erishkigal' as my author pen name. Because to have a truly great hero, they must descend into the underworld, stripping away all of the layers of who they are until there is nothing left but their core._

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	72. Chapter 72

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to __**Cacow the Lazy, rawrrawrblacksheep, Qweb, Kelly Jo, blown-transistor, kogouma, LoLoLaLoco, Prospero Hibiki, ciro, mythwriter, lazarus73, Neko Tiger, Mystewitch, Penny Tortoiseshell, T.R. Blessing, LEPrecon, **__and __**Adamantium Rose.**_

_I'm sorry I'm only able to do updates now every 3-4 days. When work slows down in the summer, I can update almost every day. Once things pick up in the fall, it's all I can do to find time to write. I've got rough plot outlines for the next few chapters already in my head, but you need a little quiet time to sit down and coax your characters to speak to you._

X

X

Chapter 72

_"You must move fast,"_ the Friend said inside her mind. _"While the Queen is still preoccupied with your military."_

Bernice looked at all the people strapped into beds such as _she _had been strapped into, their bodies sedated while the Chitauri harnessed the power of their brains as a living computer. She had overheard Doctor Banner speak of such things when the engineers had been brainstorming as to why the Chitauri in Ambrym may have drilled holes into the children's brains. Scientists had figured out how to create computers out of the brain cells from rats that were capable of learning, but no one had ever been able to keep such 'living computers' alive for more than a few hours. The Chitauri had overcome this problem by keeping the bodies that housed the brains minimally alive. If such could be said to be living!

_"I have to help these people,"_ Bernice said. _"Together, we are stronger."_

_"Look at them," _the Friend said. _"These people have been trapped here for decades. Look how thin their muscles have become from lack of use. They will slow you down."_

_"Once I have killed the queen," _Bernice said. _"I shall offer them the choice."_

The door to the enormous room which housed the living computers opened. Several more guardian drones clomped stiffly in and were led over to where she had just finished hooking up her electrodes to an unfortunate looking, elderly man so wan and thin he appeared nearly a skeleton. _All _of the computer drones were male except for her. For some reason she did not _need _the electrodes to enter into the landscape. Eleven guardians had answered her call. One was larger and more intimidating looking than the others, nearly as tall as Steve, with a mechanical arm and other cybernetic components. He looked vaguely familiar.

"Bow to me, humble creature," Bernice spoke the words the Friend had told her would override the Chitauri safety protocols . "It is time to swarm."

"You summons us, young queen," the guardians spoke.

The big man wore an ocular that had been drilled in next to one of his eyes, the green tint to the lenses indicating they were some type of built-in night vision goggle.

"What is your name?" Bernice asked. "Before you were given a designation by the elder queen?"

"Name?" the guardian stated flatly. "Barnes. Buchanan. James."

Chills ran down Bernice's spine. Impossible! No … not impossible. If Steve had been carried out of his own time and into hers, why not his best friend?

_"He is Herr Kleiser's crowning achievement," _the Friend said. _"Second only to the one your husband knew as Red Skull. If any man is capable of bringing down the queen, it is this one."_

"Come with me," Bernice told the eleven guardians. "The old queen has grown complacent and weak. I desire this hive for myself."

"You seek to give a challenge?" Bucky asked, his voice flat and unemotional. "You are smaller than I anticipated from the touch of your mind."

_"You must do as I said,"_ the Friend said.

Bernice reached up to touch his cheek. "Bucky … I am so sorry."

She uplinked through the landscape the Other had foolishly not realized she could see, through the pathways that were really a living computer, until she connected to the place the eleven minds which stood before her now could be controlled. Stifling her feeling of self-loathing, she did what she needed to do to save her world.

All eleven of them snapped at attention, a maneuver that was alien to the Chitauri, but not to _her, _who had memorized every aspect of her husband's salute. She turned them, as though they were an appendage, eleven men and a lone former-Russian agent, and marched them straight out the door. Marched them towards the center of the ship where the Chitauri queen was currently occupied by the fighter jets swarming outside the ship, and therefore vulnerable. Marched them, possibly, to their deaths.

She was no better than the Chitauri queen.

She _was _a Chitauri queen, for all intents and purposes.

The grey-skinned drones skittered to the side of the hallways as they passed, neither challenging them, nor alerting their slave masters they were headed for the center of the ship. The maintenance drones were more self-aware than the battle drones were, the reason Count Rugen was so willing to help once he'd realized they would treat him better than the shape shifters did. Word was being whispered through the subtle network these creatures had created through the landscape beneath the notice of their captors that something _different _was happening, and it was good. The Friend had been very busy.

Not for the first time, she wondered who the Friend was, and how he had come to know so much about their captors?

They got within three levels of the inner chamber before they were finally spotted. The black creatures of nightmare shrieked, alerting the ship they had a coup d'etat on their hands. Bernice could feel the mind of the hive Queen reach through the landscape and give the kill command, trying to eliminate both _her _and also her guardian drones. The Friend had taught her how to negate this command and protect herself, and her drones.

"Kill them," Bernice said. She closed her eyes and strengthened the connection through the landscape between her own mind and the minds of the drones.

The shape shifters rushed at them, fangs snapping. They were larger than the guardians. And stronger. But she had twice as many guardians as they had shape shifters. She gave the guardians the command to attack.

_"You have this game," _the Friend said. _"Pacman. Aim each of the guardians at an individual shape shifter and their programming will follow through your command. They will seek guidance when they get conflicting protocols."_

The delay. She had _not _been imagining it. There _was _somebody driving these people like remote control cars. _Her._ She pushed aside her reservations. She did not know the other nine people whose minds she had seized, but Agent Romanov was a SHIELD agent, while Bucky had fought Nazi's in World War II. If it were possible to free their minds right this instant, they would _choose _to do what she was asking of them.

_"The guardians are the elitist of the elite,"_ the Friend spoke into her mind. _"Created because the shape shifters reproduce too slowly to replace one of their numbers lost in battle. They would kill their slavers if they could think for themselves."_

It was strange, playing a video game in your mind of a battle that was going on in real life right in front of you. One of the guardians fell, his all-too-human shriek of agony as the shape shifter picked him up by the neck and twisted, snapping his neck, the shriek cut short. Oh, god! Tears streamed down Bernice's cheeks, but the Friend had warned her that no matter what happened, she must maintain her focus. This wasn't only _her_ escape she was attempting, but an escape for every single creature on this ship, including the grey-skinned drones. Sometimes, you lost men in battle.

_"Now I know how Steve feels,"_ Bernice said to the Friend. But she did not release control of her drones.

Agent Romanov was thrown against the wall and nearly gutted like a fish, but she, of all the guardians, still retained her natural instincts. She had not been captive long enough for the Chitauri to completely rewrite her neural pathways. Bernice could feel her control slip as the shape shifter picked Natasha up and dug a smaller claw into her flesh. Through the network, she could _see_ the confusion in Natasha's mind. She could not force creatures who had forgotten how to think to think for themselves, but this, she could do.

_"Remember who you are, Natasha,"_ Bernice gave the command. She reached across the landscape and removed a mental block, only partially erected, that separated that part of the Black Widow's ability to think from the rest of her mind. Natasha fell to the floor.

"Agent Romanov!" Bernice shouted. "You must fight for your life!"

Natasha cocked her head, her blue eyes filled with confusion. The shape shifter snapped at her neck. The Black Widow had been caught unawares _once _by these creatures, not understanding that the tall man in a robe standing on a dock in Melanesia was really a shape shifting alien from outer space. She would not be caught unawares a second time. With Bernice blocking the Queen from reasserting control, Natasha was free from the Chitauri battle protocols. She was a hell of a lot faster without them.

"Eeeyah!" Natasha shouted. She ran up the wall, flipped upside down right over the shape shifter who was snapping at her head, and landed behind it. All of the guardians came equipped with knives and guns. Natasha had a grudge. The Black Widow stabbed the shape shifter somewhere in its midsection as it turned towards her, black blood spurting all over her red hair.

_"Tell the guardians to stab two inches above where your belly button would be," _the Friend said. _"That is where their central nervous system is. Not in their heads. It will knock them senseless for several hours."_

Bernice relayed the information to the drones. Including Natasha. The shape shifter was quickly dispatched. Agent Romanov moved to help one of the other guardians. One down, five to go.

_"If you know so much," _Bernice asked, _"then why aren't -you- doing this?"_

_"The landscape can only be commanded by a Queen," _the Friend said. _"Why do you think there are so few females amongst the captives? The Other did not realize the level of Deviant DNA amongst your species had grown so prevalent that many females are capable of accessing the uplink. With the exception of Agent Romanov, who has no Deviant DNA, you are alone."_

Bucky Barnes stabbed a second shape shifter in the place the Friend had said, causing the thing to lay twitching upon the ground. One of the other guardians brought down a third one the same way. Both signaled her for new programming. Bernice resisted the urge to say, 'hello, stupid, there are still four more shape shifters in the room,' and gave the guardians explicit directions which shape shifters they were now supposed to kill. Three down, three to go. Bernice remembered some of the ideas Steve had had about how to take these bastards down.

"Wolf pack!" she shouted aloud. "Work together."

A second guardian was disemboweled before her eyes. Bernice wanted to retch. The guardian kept right on fighting, ignoring his own pain or the chunk of intestine protruding from his sliced gut. It was the same thing they had tried to do to Steve.

"Stand down, guardian," she commanded. "You need medical attention. Lay down and hold yourself together until I give you further orders."

It did not look good. She was certain the man was not going to survive. But she'd be damned if she was going to force the poor bastard to continue fighting in that state. Steve did not like to speak of the men who had died under his command, but she had seen the haunted look which came into his eyes when he discussed one of his missions and would suddenly grow silent. They had that in common now. She commanded the other guardians to juggle the remaining three shape shifters.

"Help her," Bernice commanded Bucky Barnes. Agent Romanov was caught between two of the shape shifters, whirling like a tornado. A fist from Bucky knocked one of them off balance just long enough for her to stick a knife into the nerve-center of the second one. Bucky stabbed the first. Five down, one to go.

She commanded the remaining guardians to corner the last shape shifter. The creature backed into a corner, shrieking.

_"You can give the creature no quarter," _the Friend said. _"I have asked of you one small mercy. If you let this creature survive, they will -all- need to die or your world will never be safe."_

The Friend had some peculiar notions which unsettled her. He was also evasive. But so far, he had not steered her wrong. And furthermore, these bastards _were _planning on exterminating everyone on her planet.

"Kill it," she ordered.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as they dismembered the five Chitauri shape shifters. The guardians did as she commanded mindlessly, needing explicit directions on how to accomplish this as dismembering their former slave masters was not a command within their programming. It felt as though _she _had dismembered the formerly living creatures.

"Who the hell are you?" Agent Romanov asked, doubled over and panting as she caught her breath. She looked to be a wild, feral creature. A Tasmanian devil which suddenly found itself shot with a tranquilizer dart, uprooted to someplace else while only vaguely conscious of being transported, and suddenly waking up in a zoo.

Bernice remembered that the Agent Romanov she had met at Miss Pott's birthday party had not been _real. _This Agent Romanov did not know her from a hole in the head.

"I'm a friend of Steve Rogers," Bernice said. "They captured me to get to _him. _But I escaped. Earth is under attack. We need to take this ship. It's our only hope."

Agent Romanov straightened up, no longer winded. She looked at Bernice and frowned.

"Stay the fuck out of my head," Natasha said. She looked to the other guardians and did a double-take when she saw Bucky Barnes.

"Winter soldier?"

"I have gone by that designation," Bucky said emotionlessly.

Natasha reached up to touch the ocular drilled into his head next to his eye. "What have they done to you?" She looked to Bernice, perplexed. "Since _you _seem to have a plan and _-I- _have been behind the eight ball until now, why don't _you _lead the way?"

Wearing the black blood of her former captors, Bernice commanded her eight remaining guardians plus Natasha and pressed into the chamber of the Chitauri queen. They were immediately attacked by three more shape shifters, but the grey-skinned attendant drones, yet another classification of slave-drones within the hive, ignored the Queen's command to attack them and skittered to the edge of the room, their grey eyes filled with fear and curiosity. The queen was strapped into some sort of reclining chair, dozens of wires attached directly into her body, not so very different from how Bernice had been strapped into the bed in the computer-drone room.

Oh, crap! That was one big shape shifter! Nearly twice the size of the males they had just defeated by the skin of their teeth. Double crap! The Queen shrieked at them in rage as one by one they killed the three shape shifters that were manning weapons systems, shooting at American troops, no doubt. Bernice could feel the command go through the landscape to maintain the status quo. A feeling of dread went through her entire body as the Queen gave up on piloting the ship and attended to the much more immediate threat. The people who had come into her lair to kill her.

Her shape shifted into a humanoid form. Black and hideous, but definitely female. She shaped her vocal chords to speak.

"How did you escape, minion?" the Queen hissed. She moved towards them slowly, sideways, moving just a little closer at each step. Like a cat stalking a mouse.

"A friend helped me."

"You are a most troublesome species," the Queen hissed. "Herr Kleiser was a sentimental fool! I grew tired of his experiments. I alerted the Other it was time to invade this world and be done with it!"

"Either you can order the ships in space to leave," Bernice said. "Or we're going to have no choice but to kill you."

"You are weak," the Queen sneered. She moved closer, closer still, like a cobra readying to strike. "Of all the ships that now occupy this world, this ship was the first. _-I- _was the first! Do you think you can just come onto my ship and eradicate hundreds of years of work?"

_"Be ready,_" the Friend whispered into her mind. _"She does not know that you know her weakness."_

Bernice's heart pounded in her throat. Her brow broke out in a cold sweat, her hands clammy as she deliberately ignored the terrifying creature moving closer and closer, like a black panther moving in for the kill. An explosion rocked the ship. Without the shape shifters manning weapons systems or the Queen flying the ship, they were now getting hit by the United States military. Now that she was no longer flying, the Queen's command over her landscape was far stronger than Bernice's, honed by centuries of being in control of it. The guardians began to waiver, no longer certain which queen they wished to swarm with, or defend. All except for one. Bernice sent the knowledge into Agent Romanov's mind, seeing her discreet nod.

"As a matter of fact," Bernice said glibly, "I _do _think I can do just that."

The Queen rushed at her.

Bernice ducked, just barely missing having her head snapped off by an enormous, snapping black claw. The Chitauri queen bellowed in anger and came at her again. Agent Romanov threw herself at the back of the queen's armored neck. The Queen snarled and reached backwards, catapulting Natasha over her head as though she were a doll. That was it! The opening she had been waiting for.

Her heart racing so fast it felt as though it would beat right out of her own ears, she leaped forward and stabbed the place where the Friend had taught her their nerve center was. With a cry of pain, the Queen clutched at her gut, trying to remove the small knife Bernice had only tentatively stabbed there, and not very deeply.

A shadow flashed in front of her and grabbed the shallowly planted knife, twisting it and diving it in all the way into the Queen's abdominal cavity up to her wrist. Natasha. Finishing the job Bernice had been too timid to deliver properly.

Twitching, the Queen fell to the floor. Bernice felt the Queen's control over the landscape slip, giving her back the control she'd had earlier.

"Kill her," Bernice ordered the guardian drones.

The guardians descended upon the queen like hungry wolves, ripping apart their kill. The shrieks continued for several moments, an agonizing sound to Bernice's ears. At last, the queen was silent. The guardians hacked her into smaller and smaller pieces, so small they were certain she could no longer regenerate, and turned to her, splattered in gore. _She _was splattered in gore. She began to cry.

"Not bad for a civilian," Agent Romanov said to her. "How do you know Steve again?"

"I'm his wife," Bernice sobbed.

Agent Romanov gave her an unreadable look. Another explosion rocked the ship.

"Well if you want to see him again," Agent Romanov said. "You'd better figure out a way to get control of this ship. Because otherwise, I think we're about to be shot down."

_"You know what you have to do,"_ the Friend said into her mind.

Bernice stared at the chair the Queen had recently vacated with much trepidation.

"Man the weapons systems," she ordered the guardian drones. She turned to Natasha. "I need you to watch my back and make sure I don't get out of this seat until I'm all strapped in. No matter how much it hurts."

Sitting down into the seat, she accessed the landscape and gave the command to the chair to hook her in. _Real _Chitauri queens simply shape-shifted to fit around the hundreds of needles which caused the ship to become an extension of their bodies. Any other creature … the only way to pilot the ship was to command the chair to drill those electrodes directly into her body.

Bernice gave the command.

Hundreds of tiny wires moved towards her.

Pain.

Bernice screamed.

Natasha held her down until the melding was complete. Bernice … was now … a cyborg.

X

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	73. Chapter 73

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to __**Marz1, blown-transistor, Neko Tiger, Mystewitch, Guest, ParkerAlexis88, kogouma, Tink508, LEPrecon, Qweb, lazarus73, LoLoLaLoco, Adamantium Rose, nobody, Dany, Courtney, Penny Tortoiseshell, Katya Jade, **__ and __**Prospero Hibiki.**_

_To __**Katya Jade **__… I gave your cyborg comment some thought, but perhaps as you see this next chapter, it really -was- the most accurate word that I could think of to describe what was done to her. But thanks for your comment. That kind of feedback is always appreciated! (If you can suggest an even -more- accurate word?)_

_My apologies for the time between chapters now. I'm into the thick of work -and- just had a long weekend away with the family. But I've got the rest of the story completely outlined and the characters are telling me what they want it to look like. Now I only need a time dilation crystal to add an additional 347 hours to my day to do everything I need to get done!_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

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Chapter 73

Everything was black. Her first conscious thought as she fought her way through the fog was that somebody was wiping her forehead with a cloth.

"Steve?"

She threw up. Or at least she _tried _to throw up. But there was nothing in her stomach. The Chitauri fed their computer-drones intravenously. She dry heaved, only stomach acid burning her throat.

"Bernice! You've got to wake up and fly this ship or we're all toast!"

"Steve?"

She felt hands move her hair away from her face.

_'Bernice. You must snap out of it. You are frightening the drones. If you show the guardians any weakness, they will kill you.'_

"Bernice … c'mon kid! Anybody that could take down that nasty bug thing down can tough their way through a few … electrodes. C'mon! We're taking heavy fire!" The voice was shaking her body.

_'If you want to see your mate again,' _the Friend said into her mind._ 'You must wake up and fly this ship.'_

Her eyelids felt as though they were glued shut. She forced them open, gagging once again as the light hit her cerebral cortex and she had the strange juxtaposition of looking both into the brilliant blue eyes and furrowed forehead that stared into her eyes with concern, and simultaneously looking into the landscape that she knew was nothing but a computer simulation. Chitauri. Mothership. Alien attack. They had just stolen it.

"Natasha," Bernice mumbled.

"Either you're one hell of an actress," Natasha looked relieved. "Or you really _are _Steve Rogers wife. Shit! You didn't tell me _that _was going to happen!"

Bernice took in the thick cables now streaming out of every part of her body. The ones that had needed to hook into her cerebral cortex had, thankfully or unthankfully, been drilled in by the Other earlier and she had already been given whatever medical treatment these monsters used to help their human computer drones recover. So had the smaller electrodes that were attached to monitor her bodily functions. But dozens of additional cables had been drilled into her muscles. She flexed a finger and felt the ship respond.

Something hit the ship and she cried out in pain. She could _feel _the ship's pain! She recalled having been somewhat aware of what went on within the ship when she had been a computer drone, but not like this! It felt as though the ship were an extension of her body. A second RPG hit the mothership. They were taking fire!

_'How do I fly this thing?' _she asked the Friend.

_'Picture what you -want- to do whenever somebody fires a gun at you,' _the Friend said. _'Run! Straight up into low Earth orbit! The ship will sense where you want it to go and make the engines move you in that direction.'_

"You'd better hang on!" Bernice told Natasha aloud.

She pictured she was Superman leaping up out of a phone booth. No! She knew _real _superheroes! Not that DC Comics crap! Tony Stark. She pictured she was her _boss _putting jumping into the air and ordering JARVIS to fire the rockets at the feet and hands of his Iron Man suit. Yes … that did it. She could feel the ship respond as she both pictured, and also _physically _moved her hands and feet ever so slightly, just enough to strengthen the control she had over the ship's systems.

"C'mon … move!" she hissed, trying to will the thrusters to fire when she'd never so much as flown an airplane before, never mind a football-stadium sized spaceship. The mothership jerked like a drunken sailor, throwing the guardians to one side of the bridge. It wobbled, and then began to shudder and hum as the ship began to move.

_'Look for the Leviathans at the bottom of Lake Crowley," _the Friend said. _'Order them to swarm with the mother ship. It will give your military too many targets to shoot at once.'_

"I won't shoot down our own men," Bernice said aloud. Natasha gave her a quizzical look.

_'The Leviathans will do what you tell them to do,' _the Friend said. _'Think of something.'_

Bernice searched through the landscape until she found the facsimile of the lake next to the place the ship had been resting. Volcanic. Warm. These creatures preferred the warmth. The space whales were sleeping at the bottom of the lake, free of the harnesses they usually wore with the attack drones attached. Although not _intelligent _creatures, they were not _stupid, _either. Nor had their minds been wiped any more than was necessary to get them to obey. Unlike the battle drones, these creatures still possessed instincts.

"Come with us, humble creatures," she whispered into the minds of the slumbering beasts. "It is time to play."

She sent an image of Earth killer whales swimming in a pod, protecting each other from attacking sharks. The creatures responded, rising to the top of the lake and swarming into the sky, dozens of them. So many! The creatures spotted the flying aircraft and immediately mistook them for food.

"No!" Bernice shouted both aloud and into the landscape. "Not food! Play!" She sent an image into their minds of a seal balancing a ball on top of its nose and then tossing it to another seal. The leviathans sent her a puzzled inquiry. She sent the image again. The creatures responded. This was something new for them, but they eagerly swam after the fighter planes, nudging them through the air which was like water for them, veering them off their flight paths.

She spotted the threat that was three B2-B bombers headed her way and sic'd a few of the leviathans on it, ordering them to swim in front of it and force it off its flight path. The United States Air Force opened fire upon the leviathans, forcing her to keep tight command over their minds, forcing them to resist the urge to simply snap the tiny fighter jets in half and nudge the planes like balls. The mothership lurched through the air, faster now, throwing everybody on board off balance as she steered the ship straight up into the lower atmosphere, too high for any US fighter plane to follow.

"Come, babies!" Bernice shouted into the leviathan's minds as she did not wish to simply leave them behind to be slaughtered. "Come to mama!" Like it or not, these creatures were now her responsibility.

_'Land the ship at the coordinates we discussed,' _the Friend said. _'Quickly. We are almost out of time!'_

The ship gave a sickening feeling of falling as it began to descend back _down _into Earth's atmosphere, only towards a different location. For some reason, the Friend wanted her to land the mother ship right in the middle of a cow field in Argentina. Bernice pictured in her mind all the video images she had seen of Tony Stark landing in the Iron Man suit. Shifting his arms and legs, or in her case the inertial dampeners, downwards to slow their descent to a stop before descending the last few feet. For some reason, she needed to _physically _move her body to get the ship to respond, not just think it, as though it were an extension of her body. The ship bumped in for a landing, none too gently. All around them, the leviathans swarmed, more suited for the air, water, or brief hops through the vacuum of space rather than to land like a ship. Bernice ordered them to find the nearest large body of water and wait there for further commands.

"Damn!" Natasha said. "That was … strange." Although Natasha was no longer being commanded by her or having her memories blocked, she had heard that portion of the commands Bernice had given through the landscape that was given to the other guardians. Only Natasha was being blocked from being controlled.

_'You must summons the others,' _the Friend said. _'You have killed not just the queen of this mothership, but the Earth queen. Every mother ship that has come since was born here. Earth is -their- planet too.'_

"How do I know I can trust them?" Bernice said aloud.

_'You don't,' _the Friend said. _'But you can show them that small act of mercy we discussed earlier. It may sway them. It may not. But you have nothing to lose.'_

Bernice cringed. She opened her eyes and stared at the wires streaming out of her body. Every muscle screamed in protest at the slightest move. But now that she had the electrodes drilled into her body, it was simply a matter of disconnecting them and reconnecting them to the new terminals which had been drilled into her body. Before she did this though, there was one thing she had to do.

"We left a wounded man in the hallway," Bernice called into the landscape. "And others may have been hurt in the fight as well. Whoever they are, whether grey-skinned drone or human, find them and tend their wounds."

"Bernice?" Natasha touched her arm as though not certain she was a crazy woman. "Who do you keep talking to?"

"We're about to find out," Bernice said. She began to unclip the electrodes, wincing in pain as the slightest movement caused the newly drilled ones to shift beneath her flesh. They had been drilled right into her nerve endings so they could sense the commands her brain was giving her body, designed to act as an extension of it like a bionic arm or leg.

_'There is one Chitauri alive on this ship,' _the Friend said. _'He is the one who convinced the Other your deviant DNA was too insignificant to worry about. He convinced him you were more valuable incorporated into the hive mind as a computer drone once the shape shifter who impersonated you failed to kill your husband than dead. I instructed him to hide and wait for you to summons him like a new queen would. Here is where you can find his mind.'_

The query came into her mind. Nervous, but not malignant. She had felt this mind before when she had been pretending to be a rock within the landscape. Now that she felt the creatures mind, she remembered it. Yes. This had been the one who had drilled holes into her brain. She wanted to kill it.

_'I am the one who made sure the electrodes which would have blocked your ability to think independently were not sunk deep enough to do so,' _the second mind said. _'Send your guardians to escort me to your throne, my queen, and instruct them to kill me if you feel threatened. But we must move quickly. The swarm is upon us.'_

Bernice struggled with conflicting emotions. A creature had pinned her down and drilled holes into her brain without anesthesia and now she was supposed to trust it? But every other human who had been hooked up into that hive mind was deprived of their free will, while for some reason not only had her peculiar genetic quirks made the Other's neural venom less effective than it should have been, but also the backup system of actual, physical electrodes and wires once they no longer needed her to move about within the human population.

"Guardian Barnes," Bernice ordered Bucky. "Take Guardian A8-542 with you to these coordinates within the ship and escort the shape shifter to swear fealty to me."

"Yes, young queen," Bucky said as flatly and unemotionally as though he were being ordered to take out the trash. He turned with a mechanical clack clack clack and marched down the hallway with the other guardian, as though he were 100% a robot instead of merely a human with a few robotic enhancements.

_'I have already summonsed the other queens,' _the Friend said. _'They are on their way here now. I just hope they make it before it is too late.' _The Friend's voice sounded strange, even within her mind. As though he were in great pain. Funny, now that it was obvious. She had noticed it before, but as she did not know him, she had nothing but her own dealings with him to use for comparison.

"Natasha," Bernice said the moment he left the room. "Please stay? You are the only one who is still … you." It sounded strange to her ears, pleading with the _real _version of the imposter who had nearly killed her husband to stay and protect her. Bernice's voice trembled, but now that the guardians were out of earshot, she was unable to keep up the act. She was scared shitless and all she wanted to do was bury her face in Steve's broad chest and cry.

"You need to tell me what the _hell_ is going on!" Although anger flashed in Natasha's eyes, there was another emotion there, as well. Fear. Like Bernice, the shape shifters had reached right into Natasha's mind and turned her into a puppet. There was no greater horror than realizing somebody was using you to do things you would otherwise rather _die _than do and having no power to stop it.

"I think I made a deal with the devil," Bernice said. She gave Natasha a wan smile as the SHIELD assassin helped her sit up and disconnect the electrodes. Even disconnected from the chair, that sense of being connected to the hive mind was still present, although the sensation was much stronger now. Whatever the command chair had done to her, it had enhanced her abilities even more.

"Well then," Natasha subconsciously reached for her weapons belt. "What are this devil's terms? And do you wish me to help you renegotiate them for you?" Natasha's expression was grim.

"One act of mercy," Bernice said.

"What mercy?" Natasha frowned. _Her _spider-senses were obviously screaming at her to be wary every bit as much as Bernice's were right now.

"I think we're about to find out."

Natasha helped Bernice to her feet. Bucky Barnes and Guardian A8-542 led back in the creature of nightmare that the Friend had assured her would cooperate. The creature kneeled, bowed its head, and shape shifted into human form. That of the elderly man she had attached the electrodes to earlier.

"I hope this form will be less displeasing to you, young queen," the shape shifter said. "You know this man is alive and well."

"What is your name?" Natasha interrupted. "So I know whose name to say when I kill you?" She stepped forward and grabbed the shape shifter by the throat.

"My Chitauri name is unpronounceable to you," the shape shifter said calmly. "But the man whose form I borrow now is named Fred. You may call me that until you awaken the _real _Fred."

"What is this small act of mercy I am supposed to perform?" Bernice asked.

Both around her, and inside the landscape, she could sense the surviving Earth motherships respond to her call and swarm to where she had instructed them to land. _They _had been flushed out of their lairs, thanks to her plotting with the Friend, just as this ship had by the Earth militaries. All part of the plan.

The creature rose slowly, so as not to alarm her, and pointed to a door off to one side of the chamber.

"The one you know as Friend lies behind that door," shape shifter Fred said. "We must hurry. The swarm was supposed to occur two days ago. If it happens before the others get here to witness your act of mercy, all hope will be lost to win them to your cause."

With much trepidation, Bernice followed the shape shifter towards the door. It lifted upwards like a portcullis in a castle, not into the wall like all of the other doorways in this ship. It was also a hell of a lot thicker than the other doorways. It reminded her of the blast door to a missile silo. The room was nearly dark and filled with an unpleasant odor, like a mouse had climbed into the air ducts and died. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light.

Lying in the center of the room were dismembered pieces of a creature that was partially in its shape shifter form, and partially human. Although it had been blasted to pieces and badly burned, each piece still twitched. Part of the center torso and head was still breathing and turned to open its only remaining eye. The dismembered pieces were not only twitching, but something, or more precisely, some THINGS were moving beneath the flesh, pushing outwards as though fighting to get out.

Natasha gasped beside her as she realized what she was looking at. Herself…

Those portions that resembled a human looked just like Natasha…

"Herr Kleiser," Bernice said in horror as she realized who had been helping her all along.

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_Note: Surprise!_

_No soundtrack this chapter! I just got back from a 7.5 hour road trip (each way) with my three kids in the car, so this chapter was composed in my head to the sound of 'he hit me' … 'did not' … 'did too' … 'are we there yet?' _


	74. Chapter 74

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to __**OCDGirl326, Cacow, blown-transistor, Katya Jade, RipplesOfAqua, Neko Tiger, Prospero Hibiki, Penny Tortoiseshell, Guest, LEPrecon, Kelly Jo, Qweb, curlyteeful, Adamantium Rose, Mystewitch, Autumn's Fire, **_and_**Tink508.**_

_Thanks everybody for reading!_

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Chapter 74

_"Will you quit laying around? You've got work to do!"_

_The brassy strains of Glenn Miller's 'String of Pearls' strummed in the background. Somebody kept poking at him. _

_"Peggy?"_

_Whoever was trying to make him wake up, they were persistent. He opened his eyes and recognized the stamped tin ceiling of the Stork Club. With a groan, he sat up. Was he dead … again?_

_"Who else would it be?" Peggy gave him a hand up. She was wearing that red dress he liked, although lately he found himself fantasizing more about the pretty blue dress Bernice had worn that night they had first danced together at Pepper Potts birthday party rather than the dress her grandmother had worn. _

_The band in the background grew louder, the dancing couples swirling around in a dance that was jazzy, but neither too fast nor too slow. The kind of music that was perfect to get to know the gal you were dancing with, something modern night clubs seemed to have forgotten was the whole -point- of going out to dance with their too-loud music._

_"We've got to stop meeting like this," Steve said with a grin. He stared down at his World War II dress uniform, the reassuring feel of fine wool and a tailored cut much more natural than that ridiculous stretchy armor they made him wear in 2012. Peggy had her arm held out waiting for him to take her elbow, a universal gesture of a gal dropping a hint she wanted to dance._

_"I'm not going with you Valhalla," Steve said. "They need me."_

_"Then quit dying on me!" Peggy's dark eyes flashed with humor, but also with a sense of urgency. "Don't worry. It's only a dance." _

_Her hand slipped into his, moving into his dance space as naturally as though they had danced an entire lifetime together. In a way, they had. The dance no longer had that dreamlike quality it had possessed before, all those times he had dreamed of dancing with her, longing for something he had never been meant to have. They were two old friends, dancing together in this place the way two old friends might play a game of golf. He followed her lead as she led them into the thick of the dancing couples. _

_His mind kept wandering back to Bernice and that ridiculous dance she had tried to teach him that first night she had danced with him, the Badonkadonk. Tonight's band was not a full big band, but a guy on a modern synthesizer made it seem like the band had more members than they really had. There was also a bit of a hip-hop strain to the music now and then, as though any moment a DJ would take over and transform the Stork Club into the modern age. Dancers kept bumping into them, as though the room was far more crowded than it really was. _

_"Why do we keep meeting like this?"_

_" You're the one who keeps conjuring it up this way." Peggy shot him a wolfish grin, her lips turning up in a smile that was so much like Bernice's it made his heart ache. "Whatever you want to see when you're drifting between the realms, that is where you go."_

_"I have to get back," he said. "They took Bernice."_

_"Don't you worry about Bernice," Peggy said. "An old enemy has seen the error of his ways."_

_"Who?"_

_Peggy just gave him an enigmatic smile. Although she was not wearing the armor of a Valkyrie right now, Steve knew what she really was. There appeared to be -rules- about how much information messengers such as Peggy were permitted to tell people who were still alive. She had told him not to worry about his wife because an old enemy was helping her. Whatever that meant, it was both important, and probably the only information he was going to get._

_"Excuse me?" Somebody tapped on Steve's shoulder. "Can I cut in?"_

_He looked eye level into the blue-green eyes of William Miller, Peggy's husband. Although the man wore a neutral expression, Steve could tell he was less than pleased his wife kept meeting with her old flame here in this dance club. He could see the echo of Bernice's nose in her grandfather's face, and the way the man studied everything he looked at, memorizing it for a later work of art. Steve reached out to shake William Miller's hand._

_"It's an honor to meet you at last, Sir," Steve said. _

_William Miller looked surprised. His grip far stronger than one would think it would be for a man so tall and thin._

_"Thank you for taking care of her when I could not be there for her anymore," Steve said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go rescue my wife." _

_Giving Peggy a quick peck on the cheek, he placed her hand onto her husband's arm. She gave him a quick nod and smiled. Her arm slid up around her William's shoulder, dancing in perfect harmony as they whirled out into the dance floor. The music changed to play 'In the Mood,' the tempo picking up. Other dancers moved around Peggy and her husband, obscuring them from his view. He stood there, not sure what to do. The dancers elbowed him, and then elbowed him again. Every time they bumped into him, they grunted. It smelled like…_

"Crap," Steve groaned. God! It stank in here! He opened his eyes and stared into the eyes of the 'dancers' who had been bumping into him.

The pigs snuffled at his body with their flat snouts, grunting with curiosity at the superhero that had crashed through the roof of the tractor trailer which had been transporting them to market. Not _everybody _was experiencing bad luck from the alien invasion. These little piggy's had gotten a temporary reprieve from the slaughterhouse while, outside of the tractor trailer, aliens from outer space slaughtered humans.

"Hey?" Steve asked the curious pigs. Sunlight streamed through the slats of the animal hauler, which meant there was still a planet. Which meant he had better do what Peggy had just _told _him to do. Get up and quit laying around!

He was still strapped into the ejection seat of the F-35, probably the only reason he was still alive. With a groan, he unstrapped the harness and lurched to his feet, swaying until the pigs stopped flying in his head. His stomach threatened to hurl the contents of his breakfast, but it smelled so awful in here that may have just been the pig manure. Luckily the door had a latch to get out from the inside so he didn't need to crawl back up through the jagged hole his crash landing had created in the roof. He opened the door, letting the pigs out to roam amongst the abandoned cars littering the California freeway.

He squinted through the smoke and ash raining down from the sky, appearing very much like dirty grey snowflakes. The sensation of nausea he had felt while inhaling pig manure was nothing compared to the feeling that sat in his stomach like lead as he stared at the charred, twisted remains of the Los Angeles skyline. At least there was no sign of the Chitauri mothership. Had the Sherman shot it down? Or had it simply moved onto the next Earth city? The City of Angels appeared to be deserted.

He spied the smoldering wreckage of his fighter jet just off the freeway. Hiking down to the nearest off ramp, he was dismayed to see the radio had been destroyed along with the plane. The only saving grace was his shield had been thrown clear, the paint a little worse for the wear from the fire and smoke, but otherwise intact. At least he had a weapon. He strapped the shield to his back and tucked his helmet under his arm. He was south of the city. The nearest military base was the Los Angeles Air Force base attached to LAX, which also happened to be adjacent to the Stark Industries Los Angeles campus. He began to trudge west on the streets that ran adjacent to Interstate 105, fearful a glider might spot his red, white and blue armor walking on the highway.

"Psst!" An old man gestured to him from a building which had every piece of glass blown out of it and a huge crack through the bricks, but which had otherwise survived. "You one of them superheroes fighting the aliens?"

"I _was," _Steve said. "My plane got shot down. You wouldn't happen to have a police radio or something, would you?"

"They hit all the police stations," the old man said. "Fire stations too. National guard. Edwards Air Force Base. Camp Pendleton. Miramar. Gone. All gone."

"I've got to call into whoever is still in command," Steve said. "Let them know I'm still alive."

"Come here, then." The old man had to be in his late eighties, nearly as old as Steve technically was. He shuffled into the cracked building. "This here building is built from brick. None of that stucco the young people are so enamored with today. It don't like the earthquakes too much, but it took a hit from that blast them aliens let loose just fine."

Other faces peeped out from doorways on either side of the hallway. Still alive. Whatever the aliens had hit the city with, it appeared to have been designed to destroy infrastructure rather than the magnitude of a nuclear weapon. The old man led Steve into his apartment. Glass crunched beneath his red boots from the shattered windows, but even in December this part of the country was reasonably warm. The old man had an old citizen's band radio jury rigged up to CB antenna propped in front of the window.

"Good thing I salvaged this from my car when the kids took away my car keys last year," the old man said. "Used to be a trucker. Been relaying messages back and forth to civil defense, or whatever they call it these days. I'll just tell them you're here and maybe they can help you get in touch with them people who took down that alien ship."

"They shot it down?" Hope ignited in Steve's chest.

"So they're saying on the radio," the old man said. "Said they shot it down when it tried to hit Bakersfield. The rest … it's all just rumors. None of them cell phones or nothing are working right now. But one of the guys relaying messages also has a ham radio. Said he heard the Chinese shot one of them down, too."

Two down, thirty-four to go. Plus the twenty-three they had just flushed out of volcanoes. God! They were doomed.

"Civil defense, this is Hogtied Peterbilt," the old man called into his CB. "Shoe Dog! You still got your ears on, buddy?"

"Ten-four," a voice came over the radio. "Hogtied Peterbilt, this is Shoe Dog. You got new traffic for me to pass on?"

"I sure do!" the old man said excitedly. "I got me here none other than Captain America."

"Captain America got shot down," Shoe Dog said.

"Yeah, he did," the old man said. "But he's still alive. He's looking to hook up with his unit so he can go kick some alien poontang in the kisser!"

"I can hear Crazy Chevelle from here," Shoe Dog said. "Her pa's the one with the ham radio. She's been relaying news as it's been coming in on the airwaves. Maybe her pa can raise the military. Los Angeles Air Station has been destroyed."

"Could you ask him about Stark Industries, Sir?" Steve asked the old man.

"Shoe Dog," the old man asked. "You hear anything about Iron Man's factory?"

"Was the first place the aliens hit," Shoe Dog said. "Smart little buggers. Must have figured if _anybody _was going to stop them, it would be the Iron Man."

It made sense, but Steve _still _felt disappointed. At least it appeared people at the edge of the city had survived and were simply laying low. The two CB'ers bantered back and forth a few more minutes, relaying messages to this Crazy Chevelle. After half an hour or so, Shoe Dog relayed back a message.

"Got a message here from a fella by the name of Fury," Shoe Dog said. "Said to get your spangley rear end out onto the 105 where they can see you and someone will be along shortly to transport you to the Sherman."

With the old man's permission, Steve picked up the microphone for the Citizen's Band radio, which had required a license to operate back in his day, but which now could be operated by anybody, and thanked them. By the look of the amplifier Hogtied Peterbilt had jury rigged to his ancient 22-channel CB, it was getting a lot more distance than the 2-mile radius modern CB radios could broadcast.

"I kinda thought you'd be older?" the old man said as he handed him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a can of soda pop. "Did you really punch out Adolf Hitler?"

"Hundreds of times," Steve said. "But it wasn't the _real _Adolf Hitler. Hitler was just a puppet for the _real _villain. This guy called Red Skull. _Him _I killed."

The old man grunted, his dentures slipping as he smiled, making his mouth look like a wrinkled old prune. "Well you look mighty good for an old man."

"So do you," Steve said. "Thanks. I couldn't have gotten hold of them without you."

Trudging back up the elevated highway he had avoided, he continued his journey west. It only took about ten minutes for a silver speck to appear in the sky. With the roar of miniature pulse reactor engines, the silver suit plunked down right in front of him much the way Tony Stark's suit did, only this one had a machine gun mounted on one shoulder. The mask popped up. A serious looking African American man peered out from the Mach 2 suit and stuck out his armored hand to shake Steve's.

"Commander Rogers," Colonel Rhodes shook his hand. "It is an honor to finally meet you."

"Colonel Rhodes," Steve said. They were technically approximately equal in rank, although different branches of the military. They hesitated a moment, and then Steve saluted Colonel Rhodes, falling back on the old Army adage, 'when in doubt, salute.'

"That six-fingered alien friend of yours finally figured out how to get the Chitauri mothership you guys captured to work," Rhodey said. "We're supposed to rendezvous with Tony and the rest of the Avengers."

Steve did not relish the thought of being carried through the air dangling like a rodent caught by a silver raptor. "How am I getting back to the Sherman?"

"Oh … sorry," Rhodey gave a grin. He pointed towards two gliders moving towards them, piloted by Marines Steve recognized from the Vanuatu mission. They landed, shook hands, and then doubled up on the larger of the two gliders so Steve could fly to the rendezvous point. It was a ways to Bakersfield, but the gliders moved fast.

Steve circled where the U.S.S. Sherman had landed to float in the sizeable lake outside of Bakersfield, which the hostile mothership had tried to hit after decimating Los Angeles. The captured Chitauri mothership sat on the shore near the Sherman. Bakersfield had only been minimally hit, but the smoldering wreckage of the mothership which had hit Los Angeles filled the air over the city with smoke.

Men rushed around the friendly mothership like ants. Somewhere near the tail end of the oval-shaped flying saucer, several men had gotten out a ladder and were painting the biggest star they could find in a circle to mark it as a United States airship and not hostile.

"How did they finally get it to work?" Steve asked Colonel Rhodes as soon as he plunked down next to him in the Mach 2 suit.

"Beats me," Rhodey said. "I was on my way to be briefed the same as you when the call came in to do a little detour and meet up with you. I guess we'll just have to go to the briefing and find out together, won't we?"

Steve decided that he _liked _Colonel Rhodes attitude. He had _always _felt much more comfortable with the enlisted men than babysitting the oversized super-egos of the other superheroes, but unlike Colonel Rhodes best friend Tony Stark, the man appeared to be pragmatic … and humble. They marched together into the Chitauri mothership to be debriefed.

X

_Note: There is more to this chapter, but it's past midnight and getting over-long, so I'll post the second half in the morning!_

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_Soundtrack: A Promise - Alan Sylvestri_

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	75. Chapter 75

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to __**LEPrecon, OCDgirl326, Adamantium Rose, Neko Tiger, Qweb, Penny Tortoiseshell, Kae Gates, Mystewitch, kiwi8fruit, Kelly Jo **__and __**Prospero Hibiki.**_

_This is the second half of the chapter I started yesterday (darn work schedule … have a whole week of stuff rattling around in my head before I get a chance to write it down … all those characters saying 'Me! Me! Me!')_

_Thanks to the people who pointed out grammatical errors and Adamantium Rose, who pointed out a tidbit to make things flow cleaner. Not only did I try it here, but I actually did it in my Sword II novel I'm editing up write now (if the two archangels ever finish bickering!) Remember … constructive criticism is always welcome here!_

_Thanks everybody for reading! And also your patience!_

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Chapter 75

"All hands, secure," a voice came over the intercom. "The USS Flying Dutchman is about to take off. Fasten your seatbelts, kids. We're expecting a rough ride."

The former Chitauri mothership rumbled to life, the sensation of liftoff reminding Steve of his first bouncing takeoff from a barley field in a P-51 Mustang. The ship had been informally christened the USS Flying Dutchman after a famous pirate ghost ship, a fitting name for a ship which had been stolen. The Avengers marched in silence as a unit from the briefing room into the bowels of the ship. Steve. Tony. Thor. And Clint. Only Banner was missing, sleeping off his latest stint as the Hulk so he would be ready for the next battle.

Colonel Rhodes moved to the right of Tony Stark's shoulder, his wing man. It reminded Steve of the way Bucky Barnes had watched _his _back before the Chitauri had turned him into a machine. A wave of nostalgia gripped his gut. He did not know what was worse. Thinking Bucky was dead all these years. Or learning that Bucky was still alive. Thor watched the interaction with envy.

"Will Asgard provide any assistance?" Steve asked Thor.

"The Allfather says there are rules that must be followed." Thor's brow furrowed with frustration. "I do not understand these rules when the matters which hath given rise to them are kept a secret from me."

Given his peculiar interactions with Peggy, Steve could share Thor's frustration with 'rules' that allowed dabbling in the affairs of mortals, but no outright interference. Why had he been sent back from the dead a handful of times when others had been allowed to die?

"_You _are allowed to interfere," Steve said. "Why?"

"It has something to do with my mother," Thor shrugged. "Although whenever I ask her about it, she grows strangely silent." The God of Thunder glanced over to where Tony Stark and Colonel Rhodes were bantering over their almost-matching armor like two best girlfriends gossiping about the latest fashion trends. He looked … lost.

A pair of Marines guarded the control room. A door that had been designed for a much larger species slid open, giving them access to the pilot. Steve winced as he spotted her laying there like a sacrificial offering, black wires jutting from her arms and legs. Count Rugen fretted over her like a mother hen, offering her a sip of water from a straw. Images jumped into Steve's mind.

_Jacquie. Friend. Pain. Sorry. Not know pain._

Steve stood so she could see him, the drone helmet Tony had jury-rigged to enhance the physiological changes the Other's nanovirus had wrought in her brain making it too unwieldy for her to turn her head. Without her red-and-black striped hair, she hardly even looked _human _anymore.

"Jacquie … are you okay?"

"Never better." She gave him a thin, wan smile as she moved her arm to grasp his hand. The engines lurched to starboard, throwing everybody off balance. "Sorry. Probably shouldn't do that. I'm still not very good at signaling which movement is something I want the ship to replicate and which is just me scratching my ass."

Steve looked to Count Rugen. "How did you figure out Jacquie could fly this thing?"

Image. _Bernice._ The Count was agitated.

"Bernice? She's alive!" He grabbed Count Rugen, unwittingly shaking his grey-skinned alien friend in his excitement. "Where?"

Count Rugen gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, attempting to communicate he did not know any more than that. Whenever Steve was upset, or excited as he was right now, his ability to receive images deteriorated.

"Actually, some of the information came from me, Sir," a mechanical voice spoke through a laptop. JARVIS. "Count Rugen said he kept getting an image of Bernice, and then Jacquie sitting in the chair, but the others would not listen to him."

Tony Stark placed his ungauntleted hand upon one of the few places the young woman was not wired like a porcupine. His expression softened. He tapped the arc reactor glowing out of the heart of his Iron Man suit.

"I was not given a _choice _when they gave me this. You … " Tony gave her a wistful smile. "You're a hell of a lot braver than I am."

"Mr. Stark had asked me to monitor that IP address the Chitauri used to hack into SHIELD the day the Natasha imposter tried to kill Count Rugen," JARVIS said. "The message came from there."

"Are you certain it was Bernice?"

Image. _Yes. Bernice. I see. Here. _Count Rugen pointed to his head.

"I have no way of verifying that, Sir," JARVIS said. "All I know is that the message came from the rogue IP address that was routed through the Pentagon just before they blew it up_._ Whoever hacked in was aware I was monitoring activity on that server."

"Tony?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Tony touched the wires drilled into Jacquie's arms and legs. "Does it still hurt?"

"Yes," Jacquie grimaced. "But the pain killers are helping. Thank god you figured out how to adapt the helmet so I don't have electrodes drilled into _there _as well!"

"Why didn't you adapt something for the rest of her body?" Anger rumbled in Steve's gut. After what he had seen they had done to Bucky? This was Bernice's best friend they had pinned to this horrid chair and turned into a machine!

"The message only indicated a helmet from the battle drones could be adapted to help Jacquie fly the ship, Sir," JARVIS said. "It did not say anything about the other wires."

"The pilot was not in the seat when we captured this ship, Sir," an Army Ranger stepped forward. "We had no idea how this thing worked until, well, it _did, _Sir."

"She knew the moment we hooked up the electrodes to her head what needed to be done," Tony patted a spot on Jacquie's arm. "She didn't flinch. She just did it."

"It's not like I have much of a choice," Jacquie grimaced. "I mean … it's my fault Bernice was even taken. It was the chair … or spend the rest of my life hanging out in the fishbowl with Count Rugen here. No offense, Count."

Image. _Count Rugen giving an all-too-human shrug. _The thought was followed through by a real-life shrug.

"We all tried to sit in this chair and fly the ship," Thor said. "Including Maria Hill. We suspect it has something to do with the nanovirus the Other injected into her brain."

Image. A Chitauri, only massive. It shifted from the panther-crab shape of the regular shapeshifters into a distinct feminine shape. _Queen. Queen … fly ship._

"Can you contact Bernice from here?"

"We lost the connection the minute they blew up the Pentagon, Sir," JARVIS said. "I have no way of verifying the message actually _was _from Bernice. It was a data stream like an email, Sir. Not a video or audio image I could analyze."

Image. _Bernice. Yes. Bernice. _The Count tilted his head to one side, examining the expression on his face with curiosity. The grey-skinned alien grasped the concept that Bernice was special to him, but they weren't certain if he understood the concept of 'wife.'

"JARVIS does not have your telephathic abilities," Steve told the Count. "But I'll take your word for it. Who _else _would have given us the means to fend off the other alien motherships?"

There was a strange sensation as the ship skimmed along the upper atmosphere, just short of reaching orbit, and then began its descent. Steve's ears popped. They were completing in minutes a journey that, even in the best of circumstances, usually took hours.

"We're descending now," Jacquie said. "You guys had better go get ready."

"You sure you got those weapons systems down?" Tony asked. "We're not going to have the USS Gerald Ford backing us up this time. I'm not certain the interface I hooked up is foolproof."

"I thought that was what _they _were here for?" Jacquie's brow furrowed in concentration as she moved her hand, tilting it so that her palm rotated upwards, and then leveled out. The ship responded, adjusting course by her command.

Jacquie had practically _rammed _the invading mothership to prevent it from jumping into orbit, giving the U.S.S. Sherman a chance to shoot it down. Although every asset the United States government had was in the air, avoiding the destruction being wrought upon the air bases they had come from, only a limited number of assets had yet been outfitted with pulse reactor technology, the only thing short of a nuclear device capable of shooting down a mothership. They weren't to the point of nuking their own cities to take down the enemy … yet.

"Commander Rogers?" Thor asked, silent and thoughtful until this point. "It is time."

Clint gave him a silent nod. So did the other Avengers. Steve looked to Colonel Rhodes, who had the same rank and job as _he _did.

"Sir!" Rhodey gave him a salute. "You are the only person here who has ever dealt with a Chitauri blitzkrieg, sir."

Blitzkrieg! To a World War II veteran such as himself, the alien invasion seemed eerily familiar. The Chitauri were methodically moving across the planet, bombing major population centers, military targets, and financial nerve centers, but leaving natural resources intact the same way they had rolled across Europe and bombed London 70 years before. The bastards knew exactly where to hit!

"Okay, you all know the game plan," Steve said. "The Air Force and Naval Air will be backing us up in fighter jets. Marines and Army Rangers will man the gliders. Air Force Space Command has the ships weapons systems." He pointed to Jacquie laying in the chair. "This ship is the only hope we have of leveling the playing field with the Chitauri. Our job is to protect the Flying Dutchmanwhile Jacquie maneuvers it in close enough to hit them with their own weapons. Everybody got that?"

"No more playing chicken," Clint said. "We'll plow the field, you drop the seeds. Got it?"

"I ain't never stepped foot in a cornfield," Jacquie said with nervous grin. "But … yeah. I get it. Don't crack up the company car or it's coming out of my own pocket."

The U.S.S. Sherman was on its way to Hawaii, where traditional assets were surging to take down the motherships moving through Asia, while the U.S.S. Gerald Ford was battling the mothership that had taken out Chicago, Indianapolis, and Detroit and was now moving down the Mississippi River towards Saint Louis. All over the world, it was the same. Blitzkrieg. This was no longer a battle to save the United States, but the entire planet. The Russians, Chinese, and tiny Chile were scrambling to find 'queens' to pilot their stolen motherships, while Iran had surprised everybody by launching a nuclear warhead nobody had known the rogue state possessed to take down the mothership that had flattened Tehran, irradiating their own people in the process.

They moved towards the launch bay, strapping weapons onto their bodies and loading up with ammunition. Most of the active Marine units had already been redeployed from Camp Pendleton when the aliens had hit the base.

"Commander Rogers," a SHIELD agent marched up and stood at attention. "The President has requested that _you_ address the men. _All _of the men. We've set up an uplink to the other ships."

"Me?" Steve asked.

"He said, quote, Commander Rogers has seen first-hand what the Chitauri will do to the people of Earth if they win. Unquote."

Steve glanced over towards a group of grey-skinned maintenance drones who had begun cooperating with getting the gliders ready the moment Jacquie had assumed control of the command chair, somehow able to direct their actions as though they were appendages of her own thoughts. The creatures were as unsure of what they were doing as the young woman suddenly thrust into command, but he was struck by how docile the creatures were. He knew exactly what he needed to say.

"Where are the cameras?" Steve asked.

"At the end of the launch bay, Sir," the SHIELD agent said. "They're all set up."

The Flying Dutchman began to slow as it adjusted its trajectory to stand between New York City and the mothership. They were trying to evacuate, but New York was an island and millions of people still remained. It was his home. The only thing he had left now that his own century, his family, his friends, Peggy, his wife, and even his gymnasium had been taken from him. Rodriguez had hopefully gotten out, but what about all the other people who had taken him under their wing and tried to make him feel like he belonged to something bigger than himself? Most were poor and some were in the country illegally. They had nowhere to go. _Earth _had nowhere to go.

He stood in front of the cameras, the other Avengers and Rhodey standing behind him to show they were a group. The enlisted men stared at him with expectation.

"The President asked me to give you guys a pep talk," Steve said. "I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling pretty peppy right now. Just scared."

The enlisted men gulped, feet shuffling on the deck. He was giving voice to the sentiment every single one of them was feeling.

"Some of you know the rumors that I am the _same _Captain America who fought Hitler in World War II." He hesitated. "The rumors are true."

Behind him, the Avengers shifted. Steve pulled off the ridiculous flak helmet they made him wear, the crazy armor Tony called 'spangles.' At least back in 1945, his armor had been _real _armor, dyed the colors of the American flag so his enemies would shoot at _him _instead of his men, not the ridiculous stage costume they made him wear to boost morale.

"I battled these aliens back in 1945," Steve said. "Only back then we didn't know they were aliens from outer space. Hitler's Schutzstaffel … the S.S. The officers marked themselves wearing the Panzer Totenkopf … the death's head insignia. Some of them had technology you will never read about in the history books. Top secret stuff that we _still _haven't figured out yet. We didn't know it then, but the enemy was having their strings pulled by these aliens from outer space. My plane went down in the artic stopping them from bombing the eastern seaboard with one of these weapons."

Some had heard the rumors. Most had never heard it from a reliable source before. A low murmur went through the troops.

"Sir … are you one of these demi-gods. Like they say Thor is?"

"I'm just a kid from Brooklyn," Steve stepped towards the soldier who had asked. "They just gave me that serum some of you have taken that makes you a little bit stronger, that's all. For those of you who might have been around when I got airlifted out of Vanuatu, you know I can be gutted like a fish and almost die just like the rest of you can."

The Marines who had tagged along after Vanuatu whispered to the ones who had recently come on board what sorry shape he'd been in when Clint had saved his sorry rear-end from the Natasha imposter.

"I should be dead," Steve said. "They don't know _why _I was still alive when they thawed me out 70 years later, but I was. Something about it being so cold where my plane went down that my body didn't have time to form ice crystals. But here I am. And here they are. And we're still fighting. Only this time they aren't hiding behind the Nazi's, or whatever other bad guy they've been hiding behind to slowly take over the planet. They've got a new leader, this guy called the Other. And he intends to just _take _what he wants."

He ignored the glint of the rolling camera and looked to the man who held it. A private with Army insignia on his camouflage uniform. He spoke to the _men _being asked to fight the greatest threat to ever face the Earth.

"You have no idea what these aliens are capable of." His eyes grew haunted and far away. "We could not understand _why _they would just round up a few million people and exterminate them like cockroaches. You've all seen the films. People being lined up and shot in the back of the head. The death camps. The ovens. The bodies being tossed onto the backs of trucks like deadwood. When I talk to people today, there is this sense of disbelief. Why kill people because of who their parents were?"

Steve walked over to stand in front of a dark-skinned soldier who appeared to be of East Indian descent. The suspected source of the tainted Deviant blood Count Rugen had tried to explain the Chitauri wished to eliminate. Indo-European blood. The same blood which ran through Bernice's veins.

"Now we understand," Steve said softly. "Thousands of years ago, we suspect that one of their enemies visited our planet. Some of them stayed behind and married humans. Something in their DNA makes it hard for these aliens to use their mind control chemicals on us. They can't turn them into puppets they can control like they do with grey-skinned drones. So they exterminate them wherever they find them."

"But why do they not just attack Pakistan, Sir?" the soldier asked in a sing-song accent. "Or India?"

"Because mankind gets around," Steve said. "Mankind has _always _pushed the frontiers of where he could go. Now … _most _of us are useless to them. We've got mixed blood, including the young Asian woman flying this ship. They no longer want to simply manipulate us and funnel Earth's resources to someplace else. Now … they want to kill us and enslave the rest."

Behind him, he could hear Tony Stark whispering into his PDA to JARVIS. An image came up on the display screen they'd rigged. An image of Steve taken back in 1945 opening the gates to Auschwitz, a string of walking skeletons helping one another out of the concentration camp as the American troops had liberated them.

"What do we have to do, Sir?" a soldier asked.

"My father taught me one thing before he died," Steve said. "If you start running, they'll never let you stop. One way or another, it has to end here. Either we win. Or they do. But we have to hit them with everything we got. Because they're not going to give us a second chance."

A grey-skinned drone caught his eye, docile as a lamb as he was led through the back of the room carrying a load of supplies.

"One thing the people the aliens killed back in 1945 had in common with the grey-skinned drones was that they did not fight," Steve said. "They went quietly to their deaths, thinking if they were just cooperative and good, that they would be spared. They lived day to day, keeping their heads down, just trying to live another day."

He heard Tony whispering to JARVIS once more. A film came on of the Nazi's tossing naked, emaciated bodies onto a truck as though they were deadwood.

"We all know how that turned out."

Steve took a deep breath. "I wish I could say we're going to fight the good fight and live to see another day. Their technology is far superior to ours. But _we _outnumber them. Time and time again, it hasn't been our technology which has defeated the enemy, but the way mankind can come together and fight as a single unit, harassing the enemy like a wolf pack."

He held up his gloved hand, wiggling his fingers, and then pulled them together into a fist.

"If we are going to win this war, it's not because a bunch of superheroes ride in and save the day. It's going to be the millions of unnamed David's out there flinging rocks at Goliath that allows mankind to prevail. _Ordinary people."_

He pointed at the camera, which was being broadcast to the men on the other two helicarriers. "The only way we are going to win this war is if each and every one of you stand up and fight these aliens with everything you've got. Don't let up until either we win, or we all meet up again in heaven!"

The men began to clap.

"If you start running now, they're never going to let you stop. So don't run. Hit them with everything you've got and show them what humans are really made of!"

The flight bay erupted into shouts of hoo-rah. Thor slapped him on the back. They turned and melted into the enlisted men, each of them assigned to lead a separate unit against the Leviathans and gliders which always accompanied these motherships and then meet back together for Jacquie's final assault on the ship bearing down on New York. And then … come hell or high water … he was going to find his wife!

X

The ruckus in the bomb shelter in the basement of Saint Brigit's church was so loud he could hardly hear his own thoughts. The television had been going in the background ever since he had called his family and told them to meet _here _instead of vacating the city after Steve's call. They had no place to go except to come together. Something flashed on the television screen that looked familiar.

"Turn that up!" Rodriguez shouted.

The ruckus continued above the television.

"Hey!" Lupe shouted. "Isn't that Steve?"

"Who?" Thelma asked, pausing from where she was handing out cups of hot coffee to the refugees.

"Steve Rogers," Lupe shouted. "From Pankration. That's him!"

"Why is he dressed up like that superhero guy?" Thelma asked.

"Quiet, everybody!" Rodriguez shouted. "Steve Rogers is on the television!"

Everybody quieted down. All of a sudden, lots of things Rodriguez had seen while he had been working for Steve suddenly made sense. His strength. His agility. The way he always treated Rodriguez politely, like a much older man would, than a fellow in his twenties. The mysterious, important 'friends' who sometimes appeared.

"If you start running now, they're never going to let you stop," Steve said over the television. "So don't run. Hit them with everything you've got!"

Vasquez stepped forward, his head neatly shaved into a crew cut. Several of his 'homies' from the Dominicans stepped up behind him.

"You heard the man," Vasquez said. "Steve hooked me up with that Nick Fury guy who got the Army to waive my criminal record so I can enlist. I think it's time we showed him what we're really made of."

"I'll get word out to the Azian Boyz and the other gangs," Lupe said. "I'll tell them we're calling a truce."

"This show is on all the channels," Rodriguez said, changing the dial where the Emergency Broadcast System was showing the same speech on every channel simultaneously. It was the President now speaking, urging people to send the sick and young into underground shelters, and the rest of them to be prepared to fight.

"Be careful, little brother," Vasquez said, pulling his scrawny little brother in for a hug and giving him a noogie on his head. "But you heard the man. Everybody's got to do their part." He turned to Rodriguez. "You in, man?"

"Si," Rodriguez said. He gestured to the priest and the other adult parishioners of the church. "Come. We got work to do."

The parishioners of Saint Brigits piled out into the streets, their eyes scanning the sky as they raced through the barrios, knocking door to door and telling everyone their plan.

X

X

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	76. Chapter 76

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to Kai-Dranzer, Qweb, Me*Guest, Mystewitch, blown-transistor, Kelly Jo, LEPrecon, Cacow, Neko Tiger, Little Old Me, ladymoonsoar, Courtney, Guest, Kae Gates, Adamantium Rose, and Penny Tortoiseshell._

_Special Thanks to Cacow … who pointed out the rebroadcast of Steve's speech in the last chapter. No … it was not broadcast live. It's being repeated on the Emergency Broadcast Channel to get people off their butts to fight. Normally you would NOT want untrained civilians taking to the streets, but the aliens are here to shoot everyone with Indo-European blood (1/3 of the planet) and enslave the rest._

_Special thanks to Adamantium Rose, that slave-driver of a grammar person [*ouch … whip marks … ouch*]. Can you tell I went through school during the 'whole language' period where the schools decided to just skip grammar and give kids literature? Good news … I skipped Run Spot Run and went straight to Shakespeare. Bad news … me and commas (or would that be commas and I?) have this ambiguous relationship LOL!_

_**Thanks everybody for reading! And for your patience as I try to still churn out chapters during the height of my busy work season! We're almost to the end!**_

X

X

"Herr Kleiser," Bernice said.

"That's … he's … it's … me?" Natasha's mouth opened, not certain what was going on.

Bernice fought the overwhelming urge to rush forward and kill the bastard. Only a lifetime of being a quiet, somewhat timid young woman held her back. When she had stabbed the Chitauri Queen in the nerve center, she had _meant _it, but she had lacked the required conviction to kill another living creature, no matter how abominable it may be or dire the need. Ordering the Guardians to tear it apart had hurt _her _almost as much as it must have hurt the Queen to be dismembered, its screams and pain shrieking throughout the entire ship. But now?

"Hello, Bernice," Herr Kleiser said through the mangled features of Natasha's face. Half of Natasha's face. The other half was just a shapeless black glob. "We meet in person at last."

The face was female, but the voice was most definitely male, the voice she had heard within her own mind. He shuddered, something swimming beneath the surface of the dismembered pieces of his flesh as he fought for every breath. He was dying.

"You almost killed my husband," Bernice said flatly. "Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you now."

"Because the fate of your world depends upon helping me." Herr Kleiser gave her a crooked smile, the expression foreign on the countenance he had assumed of Natasha. He gasped for breath, his skin bubbling as though it was a membrane covering a pot which was coming to a boil, and gave a whimper of pain. "Besides, in case you have not noticed, I am already dead."

"You sure look alive to _me,_" Natasha hissed, the situation beginning to dawn on her as she searched flashes of memory and pieced things together. "An error which can be quickly rectified."

Two small, curved knives erupted from her utility belt, weapons the Chitauri had given back to her after they had turned her into a Guardian. She crouched, a spider sensing a vibration caught within her web, scanning which direction to move across the slender threads and sting her supper. She circled the room, studying each disparate chunk of the Friend that twitched in the dim light, deciding which dismembered pieces were a threat. The subtle click of her boots upon the deck sounded like armored legs.

"Please, Mrs. Rogers," the second Chitauri who had led them in here said in his most obsequious voice. "My brother is dying. Killing him before he helps you save your world would serve no purpose." The form 'Fred' had taken was of the frail old man trapped down in the living neural network of the mothership, but Bernice was not fooled. There was nothing frail about a shapeshifter!

"Steve killed you," Bernice hissed.

"Actually, it was _her _mate who did me in," Herr Kleiser laughed as he pointed at the _real _Natasha, and then writhed as something tried to erupt from within. He panted several times before regaining his composure. "But as you may have noticed, it is not my injuries which will cause me to cease to exist, but the honor my Queen bestowed upon me to nurture my own failed experiments."

"Why should I believe you?"

"If I were in your place," Herr Kleiser said, "I would not." He writhed in pain. "But I am not you, am I?"

"No, you are not!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Natasha nod. The Black Widow was ready to bite. Bernice sent an image into her mind through the uplink to wait. Much as she would wanted to watch Natasha dismember the bastard who had gutted Steve like a fish, the network had signaled her that 19 other Chitauri motherships were circling for a landing. Herr Kleiser had summonsed them, but instead of remaining behind the wall where she had been unaware he was trapped and awaiting rescue, he had asked his brother to bring her here. Why?

"The others are here, brother," Shapeshifter Fred said. "We must hurry. There is not a lot of time."

"Time for what?" Natasha hissed. Her eyes were cold and blue, the color of the knives she wielded in the dim light of the prison chamber.

Herr Kleiser spoke to his brother in that strange sub-audible language the Chitauri spoke. The neural network which had been drilled into her skull was still broadcasting into her brain, so Bernice could capture the mental images which passed between them even though she did not speak the actual language. Whatever they spoke of, it did not seem as though they were trying to double-cross her. It felt … urgent.

"What are they saying?" Natasha's fists tightened around her knives.

"A second set of ships is descending upon this planet from someplace else," Bernice said. "They are rivals, not allies with these two shapeshifters."

"Your talents are commendable, Mrs. Rogers," Shapeshifter Fred said. Although the countenance he wore was human, the manner in which he moved his body was _not _the practiced ease with which Herr Kleiser moved when he had walked amongst the Avengers as one of them. "My brother said you had a strong mind, but I was skeptical it would be adequate to harness this ship's network."

"My mind works just fine!" Bernice said. She turned to Herr Kleiser. "Either you fill me in on what is _really _going on here, or I let Natasha kill you for kidnapping and impersonating her!"

"I was not the one who stung her," Herr Kleiser said. "The Other did. He foolishly repopulated the abandoned base on Ambryn when he returned to this world, thinking he could just take over after -_I- _had done all the work."

"Why are the other ships here?" Bernice asked.

Herr Kleiser gave her a crooked grin. "Our world died eons ago. We took over the planet that had been colonized by the grey-skinned aliens. They are an offshoot of a species called the Kree. Rejects. The Kree call them terrorists. They did not care when we enslaved the rebels and rid the galaxy of a problem. But then our god got greedy. He went after the other Kree worlds, claiming an even older god, Death, demanded it of him. The Kree just handed Thanos back his testicles on a platter and kicked him out of their part of the galaxy, so now he comes _here _to enslave _your _world, instead."

Bernice glanced up just in time to see Natasha, who had moved behind Herr Kleiser to strike if necessary, swirl her index finger around her ear in a universal signal of 'this guy is nuts.'

"Gods?" Bernice scoffed. "What do we care of your idol worship?"

"Thanos himself helped birth our litter," Herr Kleiser gave her a proud grin. "Myself, Fred, and the Other. We were raised at our god's feet the way that you might raise a litter of puppies. It was _he _who sent us to ready this world for his eventual arrival."

"Yeah, right…" Natasha muttered.

Shapeshifter Fred cocked his head to one side, the gesture awkward, as though Fred did not get out of the mothership much in human form. "You have befriended the one called Thor," he said, "and yet you have trouble believing Thanos would walk amongst us?"

Thanos. Demi-god. Like Thor. Got it. Through her uplink to the ship, she could hear the hails of the other motherships, demanding an explanation for why they had been summoned. If they didn't respond, they would have 19 ships full of aliens storming this ship.

"Cut to the chase!" Bernice snapped. "Why did you bring us here?"

"_Her _mate rendered me into the pieces you find me now," Herr Kleiser said, his head turning to where Natasha was awaiting the order to kill. "Not Steve Rogers. My brother, Fred, came back to retrieve me so I could heal. But our Queen had other plans. The Other's mate was killed by the Kree. My queen wished to leave this backwater. The Other promised her he would lay this world at her feet if she double crossed us."

An elongated shape stretched out of Herr Kleiser's gut. He whimpered in pain. Whatever was wrong with him, he appeared as though he were about to erupt.

"Mrs. Rogers," Fred said. "We are out of time. If we do not invite the others to witness the bonding, the opportunity will be lost forever."

"What bonding?" Bernice asked.

"That small act of mercy you promised in return for my helping you contact your husband and fend off the Other's armada," Herr Kleiser said.

"You did not show _my _people any mercy during the Halocaust!" Bernice snapped. "Why should I help you now?"

"Because they are innocent!" Herr Kleiser's expression was tender as he caressed one of the protrusions which threatened to erupt from his body. "When Death ejected me from her realm, she promised entrance on only one condition. That I deliver a message to your husband."

"Steve?" Bernice asked. "What does Steve care of your primitive gods?"

"Death. Time. They are one and the same," Herr Kleiser said. "She asked me to tell your husband that she is not his enemy. She denies him entry for the same reason she spares Odin and the other Eternals, because Thanos is out of control. She and her brother have joined forces to defeat him."

All around her, the lights came on in the chamber, illuminating what they had only vaguely been seeing in the darkened room. Even Natasha pulled back in revulsion. They were in an enormous, circular chamber. Three dozen empty egg shells the size of footballs were scattered on the floor. Herr Kleiser had not simply been imprisoned in this chamber, he had been strapped down as though he were a sacrificial victim. Every square inch of his body except for his face seethed with dozens of tiny little claws straining to get free. Dozens of larvae, like…

Wasps…

"Bow to me now, humble creature," Bernice whispered, remembering the words Herr Kleiser had told her to say to gain control of the ship. "It is time to swarm." Wasps laid their eggs upon a living host so that when the eggs hatched, the larvae would burrow inside to feed until it was time to emerge.

"We must kill them!" Natasha hissed. Without waiting for a response, she launched herself at Herr Kleiser.

"Wait!" Bernice shouted. Natasha lunged at Herr Kleiser's head. She buried one of her knives into his neck. Herr Kleiser moved to avoid the second blade, but did not fight back even though he still had one armored claw attached to his body to snap off her neck.

"You must stop her," Shapeshifter Fred said. "If she kills the larvae before they swarm, the Chitauri in the ships surrounding us will kill you and join the Other!"

"Stop!" Bernice commanded. She reached down through that network she could sense, the one that connected _all _of the Chitauri and the minions who served them as a hive mind, and found the place she had unblocked Natasha's mind. She put the blockage back into place and seized control as she did the other Guardians.

"I told you to stay the fuck out of my mind!" Natasha hissed. She trembled, fighting Bernice's control.

"Please," Bernice said. "You just woke up. I have been monitoring the bastards from inside their own network. Something bad is coming our way."

"Bullshit!" Natasha snapped. "I don't know you from a hole in the head. How do I even know you really _are_ Steve Roger's wife and not another one of _them?" _She moved her finger, still straining to reach her knife. Bernice was having a hard time holding her. "Steve is still a … a … oh never mind! It's none of your business!"

Bernice couldn't help but smile. Why was it that everybody except for _her _had been aware of Steve's inexperience when he had married her? She did not say it aloud, but whispered the word directly into Natasha's brain.

_'Virgin. He's not anymore. But before we took that step, he made damned sure we got married.'_

Bernice fingered the simple golden band which still adorned her finger. Natasha hesitated. The fist she had been fighting to free from Bernice's mind control relaxed. Her eyes met Bernice's with a look of acknowledgment. The ring could have easily been faked, but the other two pieces of information were something only Steve Rogers wife and a few very close friends would have known. That he had never been with a women until _her. _And that he was not the type of man to do so without first getting married.

"Perhaps I may be of assistance," Shapeshifter Fred said. He hit a button. The floor shuddered like the floor of an elevator descending down an elevator shaft. Bernice realized the walls were growing taller.

"What is he doing?" Natasha focused on the walls opening up all around them as the platform reached the ground, revealing they were on the underside of the great ship, landing gear propping it thirty feet into the air.

They both looked around at the other ships parked near them in an enormous field. A field full of…

"Cows?" Natasha asked.

"Don't ask me," Bernice said. "This was _his _suggestion. I just flew the ship."

All around them, black armored shapeshifters stalked towards them. Hundreds of them! Even as the creatures whose shape could best be described as part insect, part panther, and part crab edged closer, four more motherships circled the field for a landing, streaming smoke from damaged engines. Four which had purportedly been destroyed.

"This doesn't look good." Natasha lurked menacingly over Herr Kleiser with her knives to signal the other shapeshifters to come no closer. She gestured as though about to stab him with her second knife and stopped inches from what they now knew was the _real _nerve center of these creatures. The shapeshifters stopped and came no closer, claws clacking as they chittered amongst themselves in that sub-audible language.

The swarming larvae pressed outward on Herr Kleiser, seeking to erupt. He spoke within Bernice's mind as he spoke aloud in his native language, pairing images with clarification so she could follow the conversation.

"Father," the encroaching hoard spoke. "We shall kill them for what they have done to you!"

"It was not these two," Herr Kleiser spoke. "Your mother betrayed us to the Other. Our god has ordered him to lay waste to this world."

"But this world is _ours, _Father," the shapeshifters spoke as though they were one voice. "It was promised to us!"

"Thanos is insane," Herr Kleiser said. He groaned as the larvae threatened to escape. "_His _god spared me just long enough to bring my children a message. Thanos displeases the keeper of time. He disrupts the orderly passage of subjects into _her _realm. We are forbidden to worship him anymore. We are to destroy my brother and prevent him from taking this world."

"But the humans are barbarians," the shapeshifters hissed. "Primitive! They cannot even understand one another in their minds!"

_"This _one can," Herr Kleiser said. "The swarm is upon us. The queen put _all _hives at risk. Under the ancient decree, this human challenged your mother for dominion of the best hive and has defeated her. This mothership, and the children I am about to birth, belongs to _her."_

"_She _cannot control the swarm," the shapeshifters spoke. "They shall devour her!"

Bernice shivered. This did not sound good, nor did the larvae swimming within Herr Kleiser's body, fighting to get out. The only reason he had delayed the swarm them this long was because his mind was strong enough to hold them there, but he was weakening. Stories about aliens and bizarre cattle mutilations in proximity to the places they had flushed out the three motherships danced into her mind. Cattle that had been eaten from the inside out. She had a sneaking suspicion just what had caused it.

"She could have killed them while they were still vulnerable," Herr Kleiser said. "She killed the attendants and seized control of the Guardians. But she has not. I asked her for one small act of mercy, to raise this litter as their queen, in exchange for our allegiance. You must rid this world of the Other before Thanos destroys it."

Bernice's mouth opened and shut in shock. Raise the … she would do … what?

"We shall retreat and consider this request," the shapeshifters said. "If her mind is not strong enough to control the swarm, the point shall be moot. We shall wait and see."

The other shapeshifters, except for the one disguised as Fred, began to back away. Bernice noticed they had neither come close to Herr Kleiser, nor did they turn their backs to him now. It did not appear to be Natasha they feared, but the swarm threatening to erupt form their father's flesh. Whatever was about to happen, it was bad.

"So they're going away, right?" Natasha asked, who had been unable to follow the conversation.

"No," Bernice said. "They're going back to their ships to think things over."

"Think _what _over?"

"Whether or not they want to stay _here,_" Bernice said with a sinking feeling. "Or hook up with this Other guy who turned you into a meat puppet."

"How many ships are in that second group?" Natasha asked.

"Thirty six," Bernice said.

Natasha surveyed the other ships that surrounded them. Nineteen were intact, another four had just barely made it here due to extensive damage. _All _of them carried enslaved human cargo who acted as an integral part of their biological machines, part of the hive mind, something neither she nor any earth government could ever condone if they allied with these creatures. But some other part of her, the part that had been altered by the nanovirus, saw things differently. She could see the beauty, the horror, in the way these aliens thought, and there was a kind of horrific logic to it all.

"What happens next?" Bernice asked.

"When I let go of control of them," Herr Kleiser said, "they will devour the first sustenance they find. _Me._"

"The other shapeshifters called you father," Bernice said. "How can you father children who devour you?"

"It was done thus when our species were not yet sentient creatures," Herr Kleiser said. "The queen would mate, and then lay her offspring directly into her chosen to nurture her young. It has not been many of our generations since Thanos first elevated us. Sometimes it still happens."

"But you were already wounded," Bernice said.

"These hatchlings were spawned before your husband killed the one you call Red Skull," Herr Kleiser said. "Red Skull was an experiment into grafting our DNA onto humans. These Chitauri … they are the opposite experiment. I grafted human DNA into their genome so that they could assume human form without the need to devour them or hook them into the interface like the other Chitauri do, but our queen balked and put them in stasis. She only thawed them to unleash them upon your world as mindless killing machines. But if _you_ give them form, they will be able to walk amongst your people as one of you."

"Why the _hell _would we want to let you do that?" Natasha spat out.

"Because they are but children," Herr Kleiser said. "_My _children. They are to us what we are to the primitive insects Thanos lifted from the mud." His expression was one of pleading now. "Please, Mrs. Rogers. I asked you for one small act of mercy. These offspring are innocent. They will assume whatever shape you assign to them after they feed. If you raise them as humans, they will _act _as humans do."

"They are monsters," Natasha hissed. The knife wavered in her hand as her eyes scanned the field for the Chitauri who had disappeared, the hatches of their ships slammed shut. Whatever was coming was bad. Off in the distance, cattle lowed.

"The others said I could not control them," Bernice said. "They said they would devour me."

"That is why I brought you _here,_" Herr Kleiser said. "After they have consumed my flesh, they will search for the next available source of meat. You must reach into their minds as their Queen and command them to eat the cattle in the hills instead. They will swarm like locusts and feed until they are satiated. You must then call them back to you and welcome each one into your hive."

"How will I do this?" Bernice asked.

"The same way you prevented the Black Widow from burying her second knife into my neck," Herr Kleiser said. "You must give each one a name and shape. That will become their default shape for the rest of their lives just as the black form you see for us was given to us by _our _queen-mother."

"And what of the other Chitauri?" Bernice gestured to the other motherships which surrounded them.

"Those children are grown and belong to their own hives," Herr Kleiser said. "I cannot say what they will do. But if you show you are a capable queen, perhaps they will grant my last wish? Our species instinctively follows the strongest, and you have defeated the strongest queen."

"You deserve to die!" Natasha hissed.

"My former queen was displeased I did not die when the Other leaked the location of the Vanuatu hive to your Avengers," Herr Kleiser said. "So she thought of a more … creative … solution to be rid of me."

The bubbling beneath Herr Kleiser's flesh grew stronger.

"Come, Miss Romanov," Shapeshifter Fred said. "We must retreat a safe distance. I believe it will break Mrs. Rogers concentration if she is forced to watch us be devoured by the swarm."

"I should stay to protect her," Natasha said.

"If I don't make it," Bernice said. "It will be up to _you _to find a way to fly this mothership. Or at least make contact with Steve and tell him he has 23 potential allies … or enemies … sitting in the middle of a cow pasture in Argentina."

Natasha nodded. She climbed up a ladder into the ship with Fred, watching through the hatch.

"So now what do I do?" Bernice asked.

"Once I am consumed," Herr Kleiser said. "I will no longer be here to help you. I am not a queen. I have never impressed our young or given shape to their forms. All I know is that you must embrace them as your own so that they recognize you as their queen."

"And if I fail?" Bernice said.

"Then they shall remain a mindless, shapeless hoard who will keep eating until they have devoured every source of protein on this continent as our queen intended when she thawed them out of stasis," Herr Kleiser said. "Or are killed. Starting with _you._"

Bernice gulped.

"I have one small gift before it happens," Herr Kleiser said.

"What?"

"I back-traced the IP address the Other used to hack into your SHIELD office the day the Other sent one of his men to retrieve his chief scientist," Herr Kleiser said. "The computer you call JARVIS still monitors this address, and all communications which go through the Pentagon. If you die, at least you can give your people control of the four ships they captured."

"How?"

"The Other rejected your friend Jacquie as one of his minions because he detected too much Deviant DNA when he seized control," Herr Kleiser said. "She may be able to fly that ship."

"How do I reach her?"

"The same way you reach any other drone," Herr Kleiser said. "Through the uplink. The drone you call Count Rugen belongs to the Other, not me. You cannot reach him through this ship's uplink. But you have formed a friendship with him. If you focus hard enough, the way you did when you contacted your husband, you will not _need_ the uplink."

"What about JARVIS?" Bernice said.

"I have just sent the IP address to my brother, Fred," Herr Kleiser said. _"He _will hack in through the firewalls of the Pentagon to get a message through this JARVIS. But it will take a little while."

Bernice focused as hard as she could, trying not to be distracted by the three dozen nasty little pairs of claws that kept erupting out of Herr Kleiser's flesh. She sensed another mind, different from when she had touched Steve's, but the sensation felt different from when she contacted the grey-skinned drones through the ships uplink. Whoever's mind she touched, they appeared to be excited to hear from her. Maybe she had reached Count Rugen, maybe not? She sent him an image of making Jacquie sit in the chair.

"It is time," Herr Kleiser said. The face that was half like Natasha's gave her a wistful smile. "Human compassion. Who would have thought with my dying breath I would be praying for you to possess the very trait Thanos sent me here to destroy?"

Claws erupted through Herr Kleiser's sternum like the creature in the movie Alien. Only instead of a head, this thing _tore _its way out of Herr Kleisers belly. He screamed. Dozens more claws erupted, tearing him apart. If she had spent a thousand years trying to think of the most painful way possible to make the bastard die for what he had done to Steve, she could not have dreamed up a more horrific solution. They tore out of his body and then began to devour his flesh, mindless white slugs with teeth and claws eating everything in their path. They erupted and burrowed back into his flesh again and again, like sharks in a death roll.

Herr Kleiser screeched in pain, his shape shifting out of the form he had been trying to hold into his natural form, and then into an even _less _refined form that she suspected was what his species had been like before this Thanos had begun to tinker with them. He did not fight the things which devoured him, but embraced them as they ate him alive, the images Bernice read from his mind one of welcome and triumph. At some point, Bernice could no longer sense his mind. Soon, not even crumbs of flesh remained of the man who had been her husband's enemy.

Thirty-six unseeing pairs of eyes turned in her direction, sniffing for the next closest source of meat. Even as she watched, the larvae grew larger from their feeding and became more defined. Claws clicked like castanets across the floor of the birthing chamber as the larvae crept towards her like an undulating hoard.

"C-c-come h-h-humble creatures," Bernice stammered as she tried not to show her revulsion and embrace them as Herr Kleiser had said she must do if she was to survive. "It is t-t-time to s-s-swarm."

The largest, strongest larvae reached her foot, its teeth snapping as it smelled meat and went to take a bite. Its flesh was white and wet like a maggots, the meat it had just consumed visible in the dark intestines she could see through the still-translucent form. It sniffed her foot, its well defined nostrils wrinkling in confusion as its nose gave a different message than the one she was transmitting into its brain. The image she got back was primitive, but clear. Mother? Bernice bent to pick it up, suppressing her revulsion at the slime which covered it from its recent feeding, Herr Kleiser's remains. The larvae snapped at her hand, not sure whether to recognize her or eat her as she projected an image into its mind.

"And I shall call you Squishy, and you shall be my friend," Bernice said.

She cuddled the enormous slug to her chest as though it were an infant and caressed the head. To be raised innocent, these creatures must _start _innocent. Herr Kleiser had given her the power to give his children form. What shape, if _she _were this creature, would she most desire? She formed the image in her mind, a lifetime of training of an artist enabling her to picture how it should look, and sent the image into the creature's mind. The larvae stopped snapping at her hand and began to purr.

"That way, little one," Bernice caressed the strongest of the litter as though it were a precious child and aimed it towards the cows lowing in the field beyond. "You must eat _those_. Not people. You must _never _eat people. It was your father's dying wish that you protect us, not eat us."

Holding Squishy out in her hands as though she was setting free a bird, she held it until small gossamer wings sprang from its side. With a hum, it launched itself into the air and flew straight towards the nearest food source, a hapless cow. The creature lowed in terror as the larvae burrowed into it, feeding from the inside out, just as it had done with its own father. Bernice tried not to feel remorse for what she had just done. That part of her mind that was now Chitauri pushed aside her unease. She had done what was necessary for her hive.

She glanced up at the other motherships that surrounded her. Would they help? Or would they destroy her and join forces with the Other? One small act of mercy... The Friend had summonsed them here because he had wanted them to witness this. Plastering a smile upon her face to hide her terror, she bent down to pick up the next little baby Chitauri and wracked her brains for a different face and name than the one she had defined before…

X

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	77. Chapter 77

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to the people who left reviews, including __**Ripples of Aqua, feel that fire, Cacow, ladymoonsoar, blown-transistor, Kelly Jo, Penny Tortoiseshell, RebelRebel7751, Qweb, Adamantium Rose, Kae Gates, Neko Tiger, Courtney, LEPrecon, Prospero Hibiki, and**__**Mystewitch.**_

_The battle for Earth begins…_

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X

X

**Chapter 77**

"The way is blocked, Sir."

Steve stared with dismay at the gridlock of cars. Manhattan was an island. With eight million people and only sixteen bridges and four tunnels to evacuate, the inevitable had happened. Cars had crashed, blocking not only automobile traffic _out _ofthe city, but there was no way for them to get the armored vehicles, tanks, and anti-aircraft guns _in _to the city, either. The National Guard commander who had been first on the scene was valiantly trying to get soldiers to tow cars out of the way, but Steve could tell already it was a lost cause.

"Looks like we're going to have to hump it in the old-fashioned way," Steve said. "On foot. Grab the most portable equipment . RPG's. Ammo."

Terrified New Yorkers streamed past them like a stampede of terrified cattle, their eyes wide and nostrils flared. The National Guard was trying to maintain enough order so nobody got trampled, but they were so few, the civilians so many. The military Steve had signed back on for in 2012 was a vastly different animal than the one he had served in back in 1945. Back then, the equipment had been bare-bones, but men were dime a dozen. Practically _everybody _had served at some point. These days, he'd been told that less than 2% of the population ever served. It showed. Not only were their numbers inadequate to meet the advancing mothership, but those civilians fleeing the city paid little heed to the soldiers trying to maintain some order.

They needed _men _to fight these aliens, not just equipment. Equipment was useless, dammit! Whatever they had, the aliens had better. The only advantage they really had was the alien's inability to attend to too many targets simultaneously. This was going to be like storming the beaches of Normandy. Only with massive numbers, and sacrifice, could they prevail.

"Sargent Lewis," Steve called. "Set up the equipment that's too large to fit into the Holland Tunnel here, into a first defensive line. Pair up with the National Guard, help them out. Maybe we can buy these people some time before the aliens bury the tunnel and cut off access. Get as many out as possible."

"Yes, Sir." Sargent Lewis had the buzz cut and non-nonsense demeanor of an old-fashioned drill sergeant who had served as an enlisted man his entire life.

"Why aren't _they _fighting?" a Lieutenant hissed, pointing at some able-bodied men in business suits scurrying out of the city with their briefcases like rodents. "They look plenty capable to _me?"_

Steve hesitated. Untrained soldiers could be more of a liability than an asset. On the other hand, he knew first-hand what would happen to anybody who survived the invasion. They would be rounded up, the ablest would be turned into battle drones, the rest would be exterminated. He was loathe to conscript men, but their numbers were inadequate.

"Ask for volunteers," Steve said. "See if we can't scrounge some up. But don't conscript anybody. If we lose here today, their time will come."

The Lieutenant hurried away, calling to the National Guard and passing along the information. The New York National Guard commander looked over the teeming mass of humanity and met him in the eyes. He gave him an approving nod. The commander barked some orders. Within seconds, several soldiers were standing on ammunition boxes, calling out they needed anybody with prior military service or any other training that might be relevant to step forward.

Many hesitated and averted their eyes, hurrying on, but others stepped forward, more than a few handing off their children to sobbing spouses and giving them a kiss goodbye. If they didn't take down this mothership, there wasn't going to be any safe place for people to hide. Women stepped forward, as well. Women didn't merely serve in support capacities anymore. Many knew how to fight. It was Peggy's dream, come true.

"The rest of you, follow me!" Steve shouted. "Grab everything you can carry. Ammunition, pulse reactor batteries and RPG's take highest priority. Most of these guys are going to be coming at us with gliders. Leave the rest for the National Guard to outfit our spontaneous volunteers."

Steve's unit moved into the Holland Tunnel, threading their way through the abandoned cars. It was like swimming against the tide. They had to practically shove terrified civilians out of the way to squeeze past. Had they been going over the bridge, he would have ordered them to fire off a warning shot into the air, but a pulse reactor enhanced M-17 would ricochet off the ceiling of the concrete tunnel every bit as badly as a bullet would.

"Why the hell didn't you tell us to evacuate sooner?" a frightened elderly man shouted, his back stooped with arthritis. "How many days did you guys know the aliens had come back and not tell us?"

They finally emerged the other side into Hell's Kitchen. A man in a tight-fitting leather suit waited for them at the other side, a group of rough-looking dock workers, truckers, longshoremen and white-aproned butchers from the meatpacking district standing around him wielding shotguns, three fork lifts, butcher knives, and a whole lot of monkey wrenches and other makeshift weapons. The red leather-clad man raised his cane. The longshoremen fell into line around him into what was not so much a military formation as a well-organized mob. The man pulled off his mask.

"Heard you could use a little help?" Matt Murdock said.

Steve gaped at Tony Stark's 'consultant.' Stark had hinted there was a _reason _Matt Murdock got around so well for a blind man, but Stark and Nick Fury had omitted telling him the whispered rumors there was another superhero living incognito in the city was true. Daredevil. A masked vigilante. Funny nobody had ever told him that Daredevil was blind.

"That's the understatement of the year," Steve said, darned glad he wasn't going to be the only guy in a fancy superhero suit here today.

"A lot of these guys served in Afghanistan or Iraq." Murdock's sightless eyes moved over the burly men as though he could see them. "Some, the first Gulf War. Vietnam. Even got a couple of Korean War vets in the mix, though they're getting up there in years. Good men. All of them. It may not be pretty, but they can follow orders and they'll fight."

"Did you catch the briefing on the Emergency Broadcast Network?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," Murdock said. "Wolf pack. These guys are Teamsters. They know what to do."

"It's suicide without guns," Steve said.

Murdock raised his cane and barked a command. Several chainsaws started up, already bloody from cutting apart animal carcasses at the meat packing plant. Men lifted the edges of their winter coats and showed handguns stashed in holsters.

"I thought New York City was a no-gun zone," Steve said.

"There's this little thing called the Second Amendment," Murdock gave him a devilish grin. "Perhaps you've heard of it? This isn't the best neighborhood. Either you come packing. Or you get rolled. Been patrolling this area for years and the best I can do is keep the big time riffraff out."

"Right now we're trying to secure a pathway out of the city for as many people as possible," Steve briefed him. "There's troops stationed at the other end, but if the Chitauri do what they did in World War II, they're going to try to cut off all exits from the island like they did with the Warsaw Ghetto. Think your men can buy the women and children an escape route?"

"Got it," Murdock said. He moved easily amongst the teamsters as though he were one of them, even though Steve knew his day job was an attorney, not a military commander or policeman. He must have been building trust amongst these men for years because they followed him without question. Steve suspected many of them had either known, or suspected who he really was, and had hidden Murdock in plain sight to keep him out of the baleful eye of SHIELD. Steve couldn't blame him for wanting no part of it. What mattered was that he had stepped forward when needed.

"Is that really a _tame _mothership, Captain America, Sir?" a rough-looking Longshoremen asked. He pointed to where the Flying Dutchman hovered over the Upper Bay, between the advancing enemy ship that his radio had said had just hit the Lower Bay. They were almost out of time.

"We stole it," Steve said. "See the star on the tail? It's one of ours now. So if you see the star, don't shoot at it. Don't want to accidentally shoot down our meal ticket out of here."

"Got it, Sir," the longshoreman gave Steve a perfect military salute.

Steve turned back to his unit.

"We've got backup," Steve shouted. "Daredevil's unit is going to keep the Tunnel open as long as possible and maintain order. The Hulk has Midtown. Let's move towards the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and see if we keep the escape route clear for people to get out the Brookline Battery Tunnel and also the men stationed on Governor's Island?"

"Are we going to defend the island, Sir?" the outspoken Lieutenant asked. Murphy, his name patch said. The lieutenant had the ruddy complexion and quick temper of an Irishman.

"The aliens are going to target the tunnel," Steve said. "It's not a matter of if, but when. When they do, anyone on that island will be cut off. The city doesn't matter. What matters are the _people _who are trapped here. _They're _the ones we are defending."

Steve called in the change of plans. He could almost _hear _the amusement in Nick Fury's voice as he headed towards the Lower East Side. As the southernmost tip of Manhattan Island, it would be the first neighborhood hit on the mothership's way to decimate midtown. A definite pattern had emerged from the way the Chitauri had flattened Los Angeles, Washington, and Chicago.

It was a two-mile hump across flat ground. They made it in twenty minutes. People streamed into this tunnel as well, taking any escape route they could. Several frazzled looking NYPD policemen gave them a grateful greeting. Steve signaled his ground troops to set up several lines of RPG's and other guns.

"Move in, move in!" Sargent Lewis shouted. "Murphy! I want you to take a unit and man the roof of the Ritz-Carleton. Gutierrez! Your men are going to be on the roof of Battery Place. Jefferson! You're on the roof of the Merchant's Market building! The rest of you, split in half to defend the two entrances to the tunnel!"

"There it is!" one of the men shouted. The others pointed across the harbor at the advancing second ship. It was a twin for the one Jacquie was piloting, minus the star on the tail. The men grew quiet, nervous whispers moving through the men like the wind whistling during a storm.

"Do you think she can take on that mothership?" Sargent Lewis asked, pointing to the Flying Dutchman.

"She is to use that ship as a weapon of last resort," Steve said, understanding the Sargent referred to Jacquie. "She needs time to learn how to man the weapons. Once we get the people out, this city is expendable. That ship is the only chance we will ever have to level the playing field. She is just supposed to buy us some time."

Almost as if on cue, a squadron of fighter jets flew overhead in tight formation, hot on Tony Stark's tail. Two more squadrons flew by, Thor and Colonel Rhodes each embedded in a fighter wing. They had a better chance if the Avengers shored up traditional military assets as the battle began. If the mothership made it past the three air units, the Avengers were to lead their units to hit the mothership with everything they had, and then regroup.

"Fury, this is Cap," Steve called. "We're into position."

"Someone will be along with your ride shortly," Nick Fury called over the radio. "Just in case."

It was a lie. They _knew _he was going to need that glider once the mothership slipped past the Flying Dutchman. Jacquie was to play a game of chicken, try to get them to release their leviathans and gliders early while they were still out over open water instead of over the city where the enormous space whales could duck between the alleys created by the skyscrapers, and then get out of the way so the fighter jets and bombers could hit the mothership.

Unlike the _first _time the Chitauri had invaded New York, these fighter jets were retrofitted with the latest Stark Industries weaponry. Tony Stark had only said he would not sell weapons for _Earth_ governments to kill one another. All bets were off once aliens had invaded from outer space.

Steve wished _he _were in a fighter jet. He glanced to the men on either side of him. No. He was needed here. He was the only one who had taken on the Hydra weapons during World War II, Herr Kleiser's next-generation weapons to what the Chitauri were using. He had fought back then largely _on foot. _At least they had taken the cosmic cube back to Asgard, so these Chitauri only had weapons that were actually a step _below _the Stark Industries pulse-reactor equipped weaponry. Of course, Earth did not have armored space whales. Or spaceships with interstellar engines. Or _nearly _enough stolen gliders.

"It begins," Sargent Lewis said.

Steve watched the leviathans move out of formation and head straight towards what they perceived to be the only _real _threat. The stolen mothership. A low rumble came from behind him. Two B-2 stealth bombers rattled the windows in the buildings they were positioned amongst.

_'Move, Jacquie, move,_' Steve chanted to himself. Jacquie didn't move until the last moment, leaping skyward just as the three fighter squadrons skimmed her belly and headed straight for the Leviathans, using the enormous ship to mask what the three squadrons were up to until the last minute.

The leviathans changed direction and headed straight for the B2 bombers, ignoring the fighter jets which swirled around them, trying to penetrate their formidable armor.

"Darn!" Steve cussed. He bent into his radio. "Fury … where's that ride you promised? They're headed straight for us."

"Lock and load," Sargent Lewis shouted.

The sound of M-17's clicking off their safety's filled the air.

One of the Leviathans broke off and headed straight for them.

X

Clint moved his men into position on the roof of 40 Wall Street, the tallest building in the Financial District.

"Owl, this is Hawkeye, are you in position?"

"Owl is seeing in the dark."

"Sparrow Hawk, you ready?"

"Sparrow Hawk scanning for dinner, Sir."

"Red Tail, this is Hawkeye, how's that bowling alley?"

"Bowling alley is covered, Sir."

Clint moved down the list to verify the other sniper units were all in position. He surveyed the rooftops. From here, every single one looked abandoned. Only if you specifically looked would you spot the snipers. _All _elite snipers were trained not only to hit their mark, but also to sneak in, hide, and sneak out alive again after a mission. This was, to his knowledge, the largest grouping of elite sniper units from all four branches of the military, as well as a few volunteers pulled out of retirement and a few civilian sportsmen with hunting experience, that he had ever led. The muzzle of a M24 peeked out of what appeared to be gravel.

"Hawkeye, this is Owl," an Army unit called. "Are you seeing this?"

"I see it," Clint said grimly. "Cap won't be able to slow them down for long, and then they'll be heading right up the bowling alley."

By bowling alley, he meant Broadway, which ran the entire length of Manhattan Island. His units were positioned in buildings the entire length of the main north-to-south running streets, which acted like enormous canyons with all the skyscrapers. Unlike the last time, where the invasion had caught them by surprise, this time they were ready. If the leviathans sunk down into the canyons to yield maximum destruction like they had the last time, they were in position to pick them off the minute the gliders broke free.

The Flying Dutchman leaped out of the line of fire at the last possible second, lending cover to the fighter jets and B2 bomber coming up behind her. Several leviathans veered off as they had hoped to follow her as she headed up into the stratosphere, but not as many as they had planned on. The Chitauri were smart enough to recognize the _real _threat was not the novice 'queen' sitting in the stolen ship with scant knowledge of how to use its weaponry, but the two B2 bombers racing at them with weaponry capable of shooting down those ships.

"Everybody check your parachutes," Clint said.

"Sir," the Navy Seal sniper he was paired with asked. "What about _your _parachute?"

Every man here was aware that a leviathan smashing through a skyscraper could topple it. Using a parachute would leave them vulnerable as they floated down to the ground, but if they outright fell, then they'd definitely be dead. Clint tugged at the extreme sport wings that were built into this particular suit, the ones that made him look like a flying squirrel. It would be a damned hard landing, but it would slow his fall. He'd had enough training with the circus folk growing up that he knew how to fall off a high wire or a trapeze and survive.

"I'm good," Clint said. He reached into his quiver behind him, the grenade tips already screwed onto it, and strung his bow.

Three leviathans headed straight for Battery Park, where the front-line defenders had lined up behind Steve, minus the heavy artillery they had been hoping to haul into the city. It was now a light artillery unit, but Steve might be able to compensate for that with his special forces experience. Shit! The man had invented the _book _on special forces, literally! Gunfire erupted from the Battery Park area of the Lower East Side as the Cap and his units opened fire.

From his birds-eye position, Clint could see that only _one _of the leviathans turned to engage the defenders in the park and begin to release its gliders. The other two sank straight into the two deepest canyons, Church Street and Broadway, and raked their armored fins along the buildings, shattering glass as they prepared to release their gliders.

"All right, Tweetie Birds," Clint called over his radio. "It's time to do some duck hunting."

Drawing his bow back to his ear, waited for the beast to roll just enough to expose an enormous eyeball hidden within the armor.

"This one's for Natasha, you bastards," Clint whispered.

He let his arrow fly.

X

The roar of his pulse reactors operating at full tilt as he raced at the forefront of the fighter wing drowned out the sound of the wind rushing past his helmet.

"The Flying Dutchman has eluded her pursuers, Sir," JARVIS spoke into his helmet. "She has relayed that she will hover in low earth orbit for approximately twenty minutes, and then head back into the city to see if there is anything she can do."

"How's that weapons interface I jury-rigged for her working?" Tony asked.

"She is still getting the hang of it, Sir," JARVIS said. "But the Air Force Space Command people are taking up the slack. Oh! Sir! Ten O'clock. Leviathan coming straight at you!"

"Okay, flyboys," Tony called into his regular radio. "You distract him. When he opens his mouth, I'll play Captain Ahab."

"That's a roger, Sir," the Red Squadron commander called. "We'll plow the field, you plant the seed."

"That's more like bottoms up, Tony!" Rhodey called over in his parallel frequency. "Are you sure about this?"

"Worked the last time I took one of these things out," Tony said. "Don't worry. The suit will protect you."

"I'm more concerned about getting the suit dirty," Rhodey called. "Do you have any idea how long it takes to polish this thing back up to that nice silver color after every mission?"

"Colonel Rhodes, this is Blue Squadron leader," another team called over the radio. "We've got one circling around at us. It's time to test that theory of yours."

"Bon Appetit, Rhodey!" Tony called.

"Yeah, sure," Rhodey grumbled. He changed direction and sped off in the zig-zag flight path they had anticipated would make Rhodey the most appetizing target for one of the only lightly brain-controlled leviathans. Like an enormous armored trout going after a fly-fisherman's fancy lure, the beast turned and went after him. Blue squadron hung back the recommended distance so they would not spook the creature, and then flew in to come up behind it to hit it with weaponry to hopefully get the darned thing to open its mouth.

"Sir," JARVIS said, "Thor reports three of the leviathans have broken off and are pursing the B2 bombers. He's going in with Green Squadron to provide cover."

"God of Thunder," Tony called over the radio. "Do you need a little help?"

"Thou just looketh for an excuse to avoid a trip through the intestines of that foul beast," Thor laughed. "I am fine, Merchant of Death."

JARVIS enlarged the view screen without even being asked. Tony got to enjoy the beauteous view of Thor plunk down onto the head of the Leviathan headed for the B2 bombers and begin smashing Mjolnir through its armor. When it came to Thor's hammer, Tony had to admit he was a little jealous. Thor had graciously let him run a few tests on the weapon, but Tony _still _hadn't figured out what made it work or what its power source was.

"Carry on, then," Tony said. He ordered JARVIS to hone in on the undulating motions of the leviathan which was meandering across the sky after him. He'd fought these things enough times to know he had to tire the beastie out a little bit before a sudden surprise could get it to do a brain fart and override the masters pulling the puppet strings to act like the animal it really was.

"The Flying Dutchman reports it is now beginning re-entry back into the atmosphere," JARVIS spoke into his helmet. "Her ETA is approximately 10 minutes."

"How I wish _-I- _could have made that baby fly," Tony said.

"You are not a queen," JARVIS said.

"There _was _that time in Dubai when I had too much to drink and woke up wearing a belly dancer costume," Tony grinned inside his helmet. "Pepper walked in as though it was the most natural thing in the world and gave me my agenda for the day without batting an eye. God! I'm so lucky she stuck with me through the crappy years when I treated her like dirt!"

"I believe you must do more to become an alien shapeshifting queen than simply wear women's clothing, Sir," JARVIS said. Tony could swear there was humor in his AI's voice, although that was probably a bit of _himself _sneaking into the programming.

"Where is she now?" Tony asked. By _she _he meant Pepper, of course.

"She has evacuated the upper levels of the complex and moved all employees to the deepest sub-basements, Sir," JARVIS said. "It will withstand anything

"I wish she'd just put on the Mach 8 I've been designing for her and just gotten the heck out of the city," Tony grumbled.

"Sir," JARVIS said. "Your white whale has spotted you and is about to eat you for dinner."

"Thar she blows!" Tony shouted. Turning on a dime, he suddenly reversed direction and headed straight into the leviathan's mouth, praying Red Squadron would be able to spook the damned thing enough to make it open wide so he didn't become a hood ornament on the front of its armored head.

X

"Banner!" the radio crackled.

Just south of Midtown, he could hear the gunfire of snipers taking potshots at the gliders being released by the leviathans he could _see _headed straight for Stark Tower. This was where The Other's forces, headed by Loki, had met their defeat the last time around. The nice thing about megalomaniacs was that they were predictable. The Other was going to wipe the symbol of his past defeat right off the planet.

"Banner!" the radio crackled again. Nick Fury, by the sound of it.

Bruce ignored it. He looked at the frightened woman, her skin pale and covered with a cold sweat. She had been trampled in the mass exodus from the city. Her leg was broken. He had found her crying out in pain in the alley she had crawled into to get out of the path of the stampeding evacuees, her water broken. She was only thirty-two weeks pregnant, but even if he _did _get her to a hospital, it had already been evacuated. He was all she had.

Anxiety caused his heart to race, the beast within chomping at the bit to be released. He could feel the green man waiting beneath his skin, the power prickling through his nerve endings as the other guy fought to get free. Not yet. Just a few more.

"Banner!" Fury shouted. "We need you!"

"I just need you to push," he said. "The head is crowning."

More gunshots as a military unit moved into position with RPG's and shot at the advancing leviathan. Smoke wafted towards them. The woman screamed as she bent upwards. It was close. Damn it! Both were close. It was a question of who would get here first. The baby? Or the leviathan which had been sent to level every single building in the plaza they stood in now. An enormous armored fin smashed through the building just before this one, raining rubble into the street below. Gliders were released from the leviathan, circling around the defenders and shooting them like carnival arcade targets. All around him, the air was filled with screams of the injured and dying.

"Push!" Banner shouted. His eyes turned green. He hunched over, unable to prevent the change any longer. All he could do was try to maintain enough control to make sure the other guy didn't hurt the woman he was trying to help before he bounded off into battle.

The woman screamed as she watched him transform just as her child slid from the birth canal into the blazer Bruce had put down on the ground to receive him. Bruce felt his mind get shoved to one side, fighting to hold onto that tiny thread of sanity that sometimes allowed him to differentiate friend from foe when the green guy took control.

"Don't hurt me!" the woman screamed

The Hulk's brow wrinkled in confusion as he stared down what was in his hands. He raised it to his nostrils and gave it a sniff and then followed the string that connected it to the screaming woman at the other end. Humf? He glanced up at the advancing space whale. Oh! Enemy. Enemy good. Enemy make strong.

"Boy," the Hulk grunted. He handed the squalling newborn to its mother and gave her a flat-toothed grin. "Hulk smash."

The Hulk leaped forward and punched the leviathan right in the nose that had been about to topple the building down upon the baby he had just delivered. He might be a mindless brute, but even mindless brutes had enough wits to protect their young. The leviathan had enough momentum that it toppled tail-over-nose. No good. Tail over nose hurt baby. With a roar of anger, the Hulk leaped into the air and punched the leviathan a second time, forcing the tail to fall sideways.

With a roar, he pounded his chest and leaped into the air to pluck a pretty little glider out of the air and smash it. Smash good. Hulk enjoy smash. He glanced over to where the woman clutched the infant to her chest and wrapped it in a brown blazer. Yes. Smash good. For the boy.

All thoughts of missions or duties forgotten, the Hulk did what he did best. Smash.

X

X

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	78. Chapter 78

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to __**Prospero Hibiki, Katy Cruel, Kae Gates, Adamantium Rose, kiwi8fruit, ciro, Penny Tortoiseshell, Mystewitch, LEPrecon, RebelRebel7751, Qweb, TrickPhotography, Claire, **__and __**damaris.**_

_Thanks everybody for your patience as Sunday seems to be my only free day to write for pleasure at the moment. I -do- enjoy writing what people ask to read. So, without further ado, the battle for Earth continues…_

_Thanks everybody for reading! _

X

X

**Chapter 78**

Funny how the mind had a way of blocking out just how _big _the leviathans were. The beast swam closer, its overlapping armor undulating as it wriggled through the air as though it were an eel swimming through water. The creature turned to ram the side of the building they were perched upon like baby birds dreading a leap to the ground below, not sure whether or not their wings would carry them aloft. They were men, not birds, and had not come equipped with parachutes as Hawkeye's men had because defending the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel had not been their original objective. Beneath them, the cries of terrified civilians teeming into the tunnel like lemmings mixed with the roar of gliders and the deep, earthy rumbles of the great space whale. Sweat dripped down from his mask, into his eyes even though it was freezing cold.

_'Merry Christmas,' _Steve thought to himself. The sun was setting, the blood red sky mocking the countless fires that were erupting all over the city as leviathans dropped their payload of gliders and wrought mindless destruction upon all that lay in their path. In a few more hours, the priest would begin saying midnight mass at Saint Brigid's where he had served his entire childhood as an altar boy, even in the gutted shell of the vacant church. Or at least that was what _would_ be happening if New York City were not under attack from aliens from outer space.

The mother ship hovered like a tick crawling up a dogs neck, so close he could _see_ each individual antennae that protruded from it like hairs from a spider, yet just far enough away that his men's RPG's could not reach it. His early years sketching speculative artwork had included the occasional space alien, but even _he _had never dreamed up a day as odd as this one. Iron Man and War Machine flew around the mothership, trying to find a way to take it down, but to no avail. It had just taken out the Triskelion and was now advancing towards Manhattan Island.

"Fuck!" Lieutenant Murphy shouted, interrupting his thoughts. The rat-a-tat-tat of an M17 drowned out Steve's words as he shouted directions to his men.

"Fall back! Fall back!" Steve shouted. "Fall back to the stairwell!" He used hand signals to be understood above the screams of his men and sound of pulse rifles blasting. A trio of battle drones on gliders curved back in a maneuver Steve had not yet encountered and fired at him. Steve ducked behind his shield, the force of the blast knocking him onto his back. A young private, not more than eighteen years old, leaped to his aid, firing at the first of the trio and saving his bacon.

"Thanks," Steve said.

"Sir … we…"

The Private never got to finish his sentence. A blast from the Chitauri energy rifle vaporized him into a puff of black smoke. Rapid blasts followed, forcing Steve to crawl backwards like a crab, his shield held up to prevent _himself _from being turned into dust as well. Hellfire rained down upon them, blocking their escape. That sick feeling he knew only too well, the pain of losing one of his men cut down in the prime of life, rose in his gut like bile for the umpteenth time today. He leaped in front of a second Private about to suffer the same fate, his outstretched shield deflecting the blast milliseconds before it could turn _him _to dust as well. Steve landed face-down in the gravel rooftop, his helmet inadequate to prevent rubble from digging into his cheek and chin.

He spat out stones. The building shuddered beneath him and buckled as though he had just fallen onto a waterbed. The leviathan wormed his way through concrete and rebar as though it were merely earth, an earthworm digging his way to the surface. Explosions sounded all around them as an errant armored fin struck something vital within the building, possibly a natural gas line.

"The way is blocked!" Private Bashera crept out of the stairwell Steve had just ordered the men to fall back into to give his report. "The stairwell three floors down has been taken out, Sir."

"What do we do, Sir?" Private Dixon's eyes were filled with fear.

"We kill the motherfuckers!" Lieutenant Murphy shouted. He stood perched upon the edge of the rooftop like some comic book action hero, chomping down upon an empty 50-caliber shell casing as his M17 fired again and again. Two gliders circled around, whoever was doing the driving recognizing Murphy was more seasoned than the other soldiers and therefore a higher priority target on whatever software they were using to direct the battle drones.

"Murphy's law," Dixon laughed nervously. "When in doubt, blow it all to hell."

"Take that, you cock-sucking bastards!" Murphy laughed as he blasted them again and again, the 50-caliber shell casing hanging out of his mouth like an old stogie.

Steve threw his shield just in time to prevent a fourth glider, which came at Murphy from the rear, from turning him into dust. His shield took off the grey-skinned drones head before circling back for him to catch it, dropping it with a sickening plop onto the roof. The mouth moved with surprise as it blinked before the creature realized it was dead and stopped moving. With a grin, Murphy winked right back at the severed head before resuming shooting at the remaining gliders. Private Bashera kicked the gruesome specter off the roof as though it were a football, straight into another glider that was circling around for another run. Had the pilot been human, they would have recoiled, but the battle drone piloted on, uncaring that he now carried the severed head of one of his comrades at his feet.

"Grenade!" Private Dixon shouted. The young marine yanked out the pin and lobbed it right into a glider which was headed right at them.

Steve noted the peculiar delay as some part of the creature recognized it had encountered a life-threatening event and waited for instructions from its driver. He suspected primitive, hand-tossed grenades were not weapons the space-faring Chitauri had often encountered, because there was no automatic evasion protocol in place to jump for cover the way every human soldier had drilled into them their first week of basic training. Despite the gravity of the situation, he remembered throwing his body on top of a grenade to protect Peggy and smiled. The doomed grey-skinned drone got its command to toss the incendiary out of its glider, but too late. The grenade exploded just as the creature reached down to throw it off.

"Fire in the hole!" Bashera shouted.

Everybody leaped out of the way, just in time to avoid getting rammed by shrapnel from the exploding glider, the bulk of the machine having enough momentum to punch a hole straight through the roof into the floor below.

"Motherfucker!" Murphy screamed. He patted the sleeve of his uniform, which had caught fire, and turned right back to shoot at the next glider. Steve made a mental note to recommend the fearless Marine to SHEILD … if he survived.

"Sir?" Dixon asked.

Steve glanced out into the open water where the fighter jets had failed to turn back the advancing mothership. The other Avengers were giving it everything they had, but there were too many leviathans and gliders and not enough soldiers. Far more than had been in Los Angeles. The Other must have felt the East Coast cities were a greater threat than cities the motherships had been sent to destroy on the West Coast and Midwest, although thanks to Jacquie the West Coast had a temporary reprieve. A leviathan snatched a B2 Stealth bomber out of the air as though it was a frog snacking upon a tasty fly. Stealth bombers were big, but the space whale's mouth was so large it snapped off the bombers bat-like wing.

"Now I know how Custer felt!" Private Bashera's eyes filled with fear as they watched the only ship with weapons capable of downing a mothership plummet into the ocean.

Steve shivered, the memory of downing a similarly shaped aircraft into the ocean still as fresh in his mind _now _as it was when he had done it back in 1945. A suicide mission. The radio crackled. Not Peggy asking him for a dance to ease his passage into the next world, but the NYPD screaming into the military control channel that the Chitauri had just collapsed the escape route through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Unlike 1945, their reason for defending this position was now defunct. Only people mattered, not the bastions of Wall Street.

"Boys in Blue," Steve called. "This is Commander Rogers. Is the Brooklyn Bridge still open?"

"So far as we know, Cap," the NYPD Swat Team commander shouted into the radio. "We're rerouting civilians to the bridge as we speak. We could sure use some air support."

_'So could I…' _Steve thought to himself, lamenting the fact no one _had _showed up with that glider he'd been promised. His men huddled together, back-to-back the way they had been trained to protect each other's blind spot. At least they had taken out _one _leviathan, the dying creature still writhing in Battery Park below. This rooftop was now a kill box. He would _not _lead his men to their own deaths unless there was something here worth defending.

"You're all going to have to rappel down the shattered stairwell," Steve shouted at his men above the sound of weapons fire. "We are too exposed out here to go down the side of the building."

He glanced over at the adjacent rooftop, where Sargent Lewis was not having much better luck. At least _their _escape had not yet been cut off. Yet. Whoever was sitting in the driver's seat of the grey-skinned battle drones had been ordered to target _him _first, almost to the point of suicide so far as the drones were concerned. The Other had a point to make and he intended to make an example of him and the other Avengers. Steve did a quick headcount. He was down to seventeen, out of the platoon of thirty who had started out with him on this rooftop. To act as a wolf pack, he must first _save_ his 'wolves.'

"Sargent Lewis, Sargent Lewis," Steve shouted into his hand held radio. "This is Commander Rogers. The tunnel has been cut off. Order your men to retreat."

Sargent Lewis's platoon looked like little action figures across the tail end of Broadway. Steve called over to the third platoon stationed on the Ritz Carleton, which was faring slightly better, and ordered them to regroup at the Brooklyn Bridge. According to the NYPD, the bridge was taking heavy fire, but terrified civilians were still streaming over, desperate to escape.

"Murphy!" Steve shouted. "I want you to cover me! Bashera! You are to lead these men down the stairwell. I'm going to try to get some cover."

"Sir?" Bashera asked.

Murphy gave him a shit-eating grin. The outspoken Marine had been with him during in the raid in Long Valley, and before that on the U.S.S. America on the way to Vanuatu. He'd served with Steve long enough to know he was about to try something outrageous.

"I've got your back, Sir!" Murphy moved into position while the others began to unwind ropes and tie them together.

The building shuddered and then swayed as the leviathan brushed an armor-clad flipper against it, further weakening the structure. If they didn't get out of here soon, it would not matter _what _they did. This building was about to come down. Steve pointed to the edge of the rooftop where he could _feel _the leviathan wriggling its way out of the concrete around six floors down. Murphy nodded and aimed his M17 at the gliders swarming around that end of the building like flies around a fresh plop of cow dung. Steve strapped his shield across his back along with the other … weapon … he had carried into battle today and sent up a prayer.

_'Peggy,' _he thought. _'If I don't make it, you'll watch out for Bernice, won't you?'_

With a forward jerk, he began his sprint across the rooftop. Bashera lingered with Murphy, blasting at the gliders which immediately circled the moment he broke out into the open, under orders from their puppet-master to take him out at all costs. His thigh muscles bunched like coiled springs as his foot hit the edge, making a last-minute adjustment on his trajectory to aim at the leviathan which had just broken free below. A thirty story fall yawned up at him like an enormous maw, certain death even for _him _if he missed. There would be no piecing him back together after _that _kind of fall. His foot left the rooftop just as one of the grey-skinned drones blasted the roof beneath it, just in time to avoid being vaporized. He fell, unable to prevent himself from shouting in fear as his heart pounded in his throat.

X

"Thou art a most foul beast!" Thor exclaimed, ramming Mjolnir into the Leviathan's skull. "And thy breath stinks like a Jörmungandr."

The great worm, more foul than any which had ever crawled forth from Niflheim, writhed beneath his thighs the way Sleipnir had sought to cast him off the first time he and Loki had attempted to ride the AllFather's mount as young boys. Thor had mounted Sleipnir again and again, determined to master his father's fearsome eight-legged steed, but it had been Loki who had ridden longest, wooing Sleipnir with his silver tongue and cubes of crystallized honey laced with a sleeping potion stolen from his father's magician. The experience served Thor well now, his bruised backside teaching him how to keep his seat on an unwilling mount.

Thor never _did _conquer Sleipnir. The AllFather had been so irate when he had learned what the boys had been up to that _neither _had confessed Loki had managed to keep his buttocks planted firmly in the saddle. How differently things might have turned out if the AllFather had shown his brother more favor for his quick moves and clever wit and less scorn for his lack of brute strength? With such a beast beneath his saddle as Thor rode now, Mjolnir pounding mightily past its armor into the creatures brain, Loki would not _need_ physical might. He could see how this _Other_ had been able to tempt his brother with an offer of such power.

"Hey, God of War," the earpiece crackled in Thor's ear. Tony Stark's cocky voice laughed at him through the primitive form of communication. "You look like you could use a hand!"

"I have the situation under my control, Merchant of Death," Thor laughed, driving Mjolnir downwards for yet another blow. "Thou doth not need to make a quest through this creatures entrails on _my_ behalf!"

All around him gliders swarmed, attempting to shoot him off the creatures back without hitting it. Tony Stark blasted a few with the pulse reactors on his suit before racing after a trio of gliders harassing one of the human fighter jets. Thor paused between blows to lift Mjolnir into the air, willing the elemental power of lightning to gather into the great hammer and discharge into the air around them, shorting out the electrical systems of the gliders. Thank Auðumbla, the primordial cow, that he had Mjolnir to pound into the great beasts skull rather than be forced to fly into the monster's gullet and explode outwards the way the Merchant of Death and Friend Rhodes were forced to do!

"Hel take you!" Thor cursed the beast who was taking far too long to smite.

Driving down his hammer one last time, at last the armor plating gave way, driving shards of armor straight down into the great worm's brain. The beast stiffened, and then fell towards the streets below. Spinning Mjolnir to get airborne once more, the God of Thunder raced after the next leviathan needing slaughter so he could make this world safe for his beloved, Jane, once more.

X

Whump!

With a thud Steve landed on the armored back of the gigantic space whale, the metal giving his boots little footing as the momentum of six stories worth of fall propelled him forward, right off of the creatures back. He grabbed hold of anything he could, the creature heedless of the puny human which had landed upon its enormous back. He fruitlessly grabbed at equipment embedded into the creature's side where the drones had huddled on gliders until they had been released. Open portals slowed his descent, but not enough to stop him. He shot off the side of the armor plating like an Olympic skier pummeling down the long-jump, the open portal shooting him airborne once more. So this was it, the end. For real, this time.

The leviathan shifted, one enormous flipper reaching out to rake the side of the doomed building once more. With a shriek of surprise, Steve plopped down upon the flat surface and had the wind knocked out of him, scrambling back in time to avoid being embedded into the side of the building. He crawled up the fin to the creature's side, dodging a glider which had seen his fall and circled around to take him out. A blast came out of nowhere and knocked the glider out of the sky. Steve glanced up and saw Lieutenant Murphy perched upon the rooftop, the 50-caliber shell still stuck in his mouth like a cigar as he cocked his M17, and gave Steve a salute. The Lieutenant disappeared, no doubt to follow the rest of the men down the stairwell. It was now up to Steve to do something about the leviathan pursuing them.

Two more gliders circled beneath him, firing at Sargent Lewis's platoon which was regrouping to provide cover for his men before they humped their way over to the Brooklyn Bridge, an easy one-mile run if they hadn't been under fire. The Sargent signaled the third platoon straggling over from the abandoned rooftop of the Ritz. They set up two different firing positions, aiming their RPG's at the leviathan which Steve was now riding.

"Hit it!" Steve shouted into his radio, clinging to the undulating leviathan with one arm. "I don't plan on staying."

RPG's hit the beast from two different positions, confusing it as to which target to attack first. Brain fart. The creature could not decide which protocol to follow, so it followed its instincts and attacked the closer of the two targets, Sargent Lewis's platoon, ramming into the gliders which still swarmed around it under Chitauri control. It was the distraction Steve needed. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand. He counted on the delay in reaction-time caused by the enormous space whale acting like the animal it truly was for the drone to correct its flight path, bringing it dangerously close to the flailing flipper Steve clung to for dear life.

Steve waited, waited, waited, and then threw himself off the side of the leviathan, free-falling towards the glider below. He caught hold of the back and swung himself up, thankful for all the time he had spent on the still rings at Pankration perfecting his Csollany, a swing up onto something using nothing but a tiny handhold and the momentum of your own body. With a thump, he landed next to the grey-skinned pilot, oblivious it had a hitchhiker. He punched the creature in the head and threw it to its death with a muttered prayer of apology as he seized the glider.

At last, air support for his men….

His jubilation was short-lived as the leviathan began to buck like a rodeo bull beside him, the enormous tail swinging towards him as Sargent Lewis hit it with everything he had, a fortuitous shot straight down the creatures gullet exploding its insides. He was _beneath _the creature. He jerked the glider to his left, away from the falling beast which threatened to crush the soldiers below. The soldiers ran as the leviathan fought to stay airborne before falling, dead, upon the ground. Steve turned the glider back into the air and fired upon the gliders buzzing around their fallen transport like vultures, harassing _them _with weapons fire even as _they _harassed his retreating men as they humped down Nassau Street towards the up-ramp for the Brooklyn bridge.

His men dug in at New York City Hall, where the beleaguered NYPD was standing their ground using nothing but service pistols, some riot gear, and a couple of semi-automatic rifles snagged from the SWAT team as they defended the people streaming across the Brooklyn Bridge. From his birdseye view, Steve could see down the East River. A _new _type of spacecraft the Avengers had never seen before had broken off en masse from the mothership and were fanning out over the city. One headed straight for their position, a pair of leviathans flanking it on either side as gliders buzzed around the advancing square box. The advancing ships reminded him of the troop carriers which had descended upon the beaches at Normandy on D-Day. Steve coasted his glider down to the ground to examine where his men could dig in.

"It doesn't look good, Captain!" one of the cops shouted. He pointed at where a second such group of the strange ships had landed at the edge of City Hall Park. A third such ship circled around to their north and landed in nearby Foley Square.

The belly of the ship split open. Battle drones spewed forth like diarrhea, at least a thousand of them, while one of the leviathans and their accompanying gliders provided air support. Steve glanced over at a ship headed up the east river. It glided over the Brookline bridge without opening fire, but one of the leviathans stayed behind, harassed by Thor sitting on its head like rodeo rider on a bucking bronco, repeatedly smashing mjolnir into its armor. The leviathan writhed and spun around, trying to get Thor off of its back, and rammed straight into the Brooklyn Bridge.

"We need to stop these people from going over the bridge," Steve shouted. He grabbed his radio. "Sargent Lewis … I want your men to block off access to the bridge. It's coming down."

People screamed and tried to rush past the blockade, desperate to make their way out of the city. Steve shouted into the crowd, trying to reason with them, but terror had a way of making even a sane person ignore reason. The leviathan brushed into the fragile suspension cables which made such a long span over the East River possible. Thor had abandoned his seat and was now circling in front of its snout, trying to lure the creature away from the bridge … and the thousands of innocent civilians trapped on the fragile structure … but the beast would have no part of it. It attacked the bridge, no doubt egged on by whatever Chitauri shapeshifter sat in the driver's seat, overriding its natural instinct to snap at the demi-god who had just given it a splitting headache.

"No!" Steve shouted. Soldiers, police and civilians alike cried out in horror as the leviathan bit clean through the cables holding the fragile structure aloft as though the creature was a structural engineer instead of the mindless creature it really was. The suspended platform, along with everybody on it, tumbled into the East River.

With a flap of its tail, Thor went flying, smacking into a building lining the East River before disappearing out of sight. The intrepid Asgardian did not appear again. Thor was long-lived and strong, but like Steve, the God of Thunder was not immortal. Was he dead?

A fourth troop carrier landed, spewing forth thousands more alien fighter drones. Police, military, and civilians huddled together in an enormous circle, hedged in on all sides by thousands of enemy battle drones. _These _drones did not appear to be interested in vaporizing civilians even though they were carrying the Chitauri energy weapons.

"They're rounding them up like cattle, Captain," the NYPD officer in charge of the scene shouted above the cries of terrified civilians. "Why?"

"I've seen this behavior before," Steve said, his expression grim. "During World War II. The Nazi's rounded up people of Jewish descent and herded them into boxcars."

He turned towards the men.

"If they get these people onto those ships," Steve shouted. "Everyone with Indo-European blood is going to be worked to death and killed, while the rest of these people are going to be turned into drones. We've got to hit them with everything we've got."

At least _some _of the civilians had heard the warning being rebroadcast all over the world. Men handed off their children and came forward, many carrying nothing but their bare hands in this city which had outlawed the possession of weapons. The Founding Fathers had foreseen just such an invasion when they had amended the Constitution to prohibit the government from infringing upon the right to bear arms, although they had envisioned an invasion from Europe, not outer space. How Steve wished modern man had not undone in a couple of decades a right to self-defense which had existed for hundreds of years as men and women with crowbars, broom sticks, and tire irons faced off against aliens from outer space.

Men! If only he had more men! The enemy beat them back, an alien stepping up to take the place of each grey-skinned drone his men cut down. He ended up back to back with Lieutenant Murphy and Private Bashera.

"Faugh a ballagh," Lieutenant Murphy growled, his expression grim as he finally pulled the empty 50-caliber shell casing out of his mouth and tucked it into his pocket.

_Clear the way…_ It had been a long time since Steve had heard anybody speak the native tongue of his immigrant parents, but he recognized the ancient Irish war cry. The drones stared at them with dead-grey eyes, devoid of any emotion except whatever emotion the puppet-masters elicited, in this case the hiss of a stalking cobra. These were not the curious eyes of his friend Count Rugen, but creatures whose adrenal system was being pumped full of adrenaline and hormones like berserkers to increase their desire to kill.

"Allahu akbar," Private Bashera replied with a nod. He lifted his M17 and aimed it at the advancing line of battle drones who saw _them _as the only thing standing between them and whatever fate the people huddled in terror behind them had waiting for them on the Chitauri 'boxcar.'

Men. He needed men with weapons. But there _were _no more men. Only a few soldiers and policemen and lots of civilians with no weapons or training on how to fight together as an army. The last rays of the setting sun slipped beneath the horizon like an omen and died. The grey-skinned drones blended into the dusk, the spotlights from their boxcars shining upon the civilians huddled together as though they were on-stage to re-enact some epic Greek tragedy.

"If you run," Steve said, his service revolver in one hand, his shield raised in the other to shield his brothers-in-arms as they prepared to die, "they won't ever stop chasing you. It's here … or hell."

All around them, civilians and soldiers alike made the exact same decision. It was go down fighting now, or go into the boxcars to be 'processed' for death or enslavement. There was only one decision to be made. Steve took aim at the nearest battle drone and gave the command.

"Fire."

X

X

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	79. Chapter 79

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to everybody who left reviews. I am working from the Cape Cod Red Cross emergency shelter tonight where I am helping out with evacuees from Hurricane Sandy, so forgive me for only having limited internet access and not being able to thank each one of you personally. Or do much editing. I am quite literally working under battle conditions here on a 9-year-old laptop and dialup!_

_Special thanks to **Adamantium Rose **for pointing out a few grammatical boo-boos in the previous chapter. I proofread it twice, but it is the nature of humankind to be blind to its own faults._

_The battle for Earth continues…_

_And then it will be time for some well-needed Sternice!_

_Thanks everybody for reading! _

X

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**Chapter 79**

"Fire!" Pepper Potts shouted.

Huojin pulled the handle on the Stark Industries end-of-year company picnic 'Engineering For Dummies' trebuchet the Advanced Weapons Research Department had submitted for their annual Geek Hurl contest. The counterweight swung down, the throwing arm flew up, and at the end of it, the sling Doctor Nyi had loaded with an experimental Electromagnetic Pulse generator flew through the air towards the hovering 'boxcar' sent to gather up the people in central park.

"Do you think it will get high enough?" Ralph asked.

"It had better," Huojin said.

The rounded EM Pulse generator flew up, up, up, and then began its arc back down. It had been turned on even before it had been hurled. No modern machinery could carry the weapon. Jets would fall out of the air. Car engines would stall. Even gliders shorted out whenever the thing was turned on. But the trebuchet used gravity and physics, not electricity. The gliders which had been buzzing towards them suddenly faltered and began to drop out of the air like flies.

"Kind of reminds me of that horror movie where the birds all fell out of the sky," Ralph said. "What was it?"

"The Core," Huojin said. He pointed towards the square, black transport vehicle they had shot at. The ship faltered and began to descend, one corner headed towards the nearest building. "That had to do with an electromagnetic shift, too. Only it was the Earth itself that sucked the little birdies to the ground. Not one of these puppies!" He pointed to the basket full of experimental EMPulse generators.

"Everybody back underground!" Pepper ordered. "Go through the tunnels. Let's hope the Arc Reactor Research and Development Department didn't dismantle _theirs _yet, either. It's six blocks over."

The engineers followed Pepper back into the nondescript side-door to an unmarked Stark Industries building in midtown, most connected via underground tunnels. Doctor Nyi grabbed the basket back full of shiny white EMPulse generating cylinders which looked amazingly like his own bald head. He glanced up just in time to see the black boxcar full of drones crash to the ground.

"Who says geeks can't fight?" Doctor Nyi muttered to himself. Clucking like an anxious broody hen, he herded Miss Potts to safety before Mr. Stark caught wind that that his CEO had rallied the geek squad and put them to work taking out alien transport vehicles using a combination of experimental technology and medieval war machines.

X

Steve ducked. The drone snarled at him, saliva dripping from its fangs, and clawed at him with six-fingered hands. Steve gave the creature an uppercut to the sternum and then grabbed the creatures head, ramming it down onto his knee. With a grunt of pain, the creature collapsed to the ground.

A terrified civilian in a grey business suit broke out from behind the paltry wall the combined soldiers and NYPD was trying to form to shield the civilians from the grey-skinned drones and make a run for it. The drones parted to allow him into their midst just far enough that there was no way out, and then subdued the man with some kind of tranquilizer. The man's grey suit faded into the grey, lifeless drones as they herded him towards the boxcar ships along with the thousands of other civilians the aliens had already culled from their pathetic little last stand in front of New York City Hall.

Another drone lunged at Steve's throat, knocking him backwards. The small hole created in the line of defenders allowed three drones to break through into the terrified civilians. With shouts of terror and rage, some of the civilians tried to rush away from the aliens, while others leaped forward, tearing at the larger, stronger creatures even though they were outclassed. Steve was too busy fighting for his own life to help them and their ammunition had run out twenty minutes ago. The drone who had attacked him pounded at his shield.

"Don't these guys need no effing break!" Murphy shouted next to him. The intrepid Marine slugged one of the drones in the face and then kicked his knee out from under him. A second drone leaped onto Murphy's back while he was otherwise occupied, tackling him to the ground.

"I … [thunk] … came to America to get away from …. [thunk] … people telling me to go on crazy suicide missions," Private Bashera shouted as he used his M17 as a baseball bat. His accent was barely discernible, but Steve placed it as Pakistani.

A woman with a large leather purse that must have had a load of makeup … or bricks … in it swung at the grey-skinned drone and distracted him just long enough for Steve to throw him off. Using his shield as a machete, he sliced off a chunk of the drones arm. With a yowl, the creature blinked and looked up at him with surprise, lifting its arm over its head as it shook off the command protocols the puppet-masters used to control its behavior and likely wondered where the heck it was. Steve used the flat of his shield to clonk the creature over the head, rendering it unconscious before the puppet-master could seize control once more. He'd kill them if he had to, but he'd be damned if he'd kill a slave that had just woken up.

"Thanks," Steve told the woman. She was short and plump, with one of those goose-down coats that made her look as though she were a walking mattress, not the first person he would have thought would have come to his aid. But then again, the bravest ones never _did _fit neatly into cubbyholes. Behind her cowered two small children, ages six and eight by the look of them. A badger defending her kits.

"You going to use that thing or what?" the woman asked. She pointed to the bat'leth Steve had strapped across his back when he had deployed today in the hopes of running into this Other who had kidnapped his wife.

"Yeah," Steve said. He reached back and pulled the strap over his head. "But I'll let you use it in the meantime."

The woman took the strange-shaped … whatever it was. Clint had explained to him the concept of a movie weapon that was not real, but it sure _worked _like a real weapon. Especially now that he had sharpened it.

"Suvlu'taHvIS yapbe' HoS neH," the woman said with a grin like a little girl who had just been given a piece of jewelry. She swung the weapon awkwardly, but similarly to the man in the video clip Tony Stark had made him watch after he had killed the shapesifter in Bernice's apartment. The woman waddled to stand between the aliens and her children, a short, plump badger who had just been given claws. She dispatched the next drone who broke through the line.

At this point, the line wasn't doing much good. A third boxcar full of drones had unloaded on the other side of City Hall plaza and already subdued the NYPD who had been backing up that side of the civilians. Steve could hear the screams of terror of people being herded into boxcars, only the sheer number of New York City residents rammed against the facade of City Hall itself preventing the drones from sneaking up on their backside. If only he had brought a few thousand of the strange bat'leth swords with him today to arm the civilians!

Murphy shrieked in pain as several drones fought him hand-to-hand. Steve leaped forward and swung his shield to dispatch them, a feat of battle only made possible by the fact the drones had stopped shooting back at them the minute the defenders had run out of ammunition. These drones were different from the first wave that had ridden in on the Leviathans. They wore less armor and wielded much more primitive weapons. Expendable soldiers sent to mass against a target and die the way 156,000 Allied soldiers had stormed the beaches of Normandy and crawled over the bodies of the 12,000 dead who had gone before them in the first wave of D-Day.

"Ayyyyyiiii," Sargent Lewis shrieked. Two dozen drones subdued Lewis's small unit of men over to Steve's left, and then was silent. They now had no one protecting them from the west.

The drones moved forward, their movement bearing that peculiar, slightly jerky movement of a puppet-master pulling the strings. Civilians screamed as the drones cut through the masses and moved towards them from their rear. No matter which way he looked, what few soldiers and policemen remained were falling. Steve felt someone bump against his back and realized it was the plump woman's two children. She clutched Bernice's bat'leth in front of her as though it were a pair of antlers, watching his back even as he watched hers.

Steve saw the fear in her eyes. He had no message of hope to give her. None at all. And she knew it. He glanced at the aliens coming at him from the front. Shadows slithered out of the manicured trees like wraiths where Flanders square ended and the trees began. More drones?

The drones at the back of the line suddenly disappeared, no longer there. The ones standing in front of them disappeared as well. A ray of hope began to ignite in Steve's gut as a third group of drones was pulled into the shadows, the flash of switchblades and colorful clothing glimpsed before the gang kids disappeared into the shadows once more. The drones kept advancing, oblivious to the pack of hyenas nipping at their heels.

"Hope is on the way," Steve told the plump woman. "We just need to hold on a little longer.

The woman swung the bat'leth at a grey-skinned drone who grabbed at one of her kids, driving the tines into the meat of the creature's bicep. The creature grabbed at her throat. She gave a frightened little squeak and stepped back. Steve paused his defense of the two creatures coming at him from the front to swing the sharp edge of his shield down at the arm holding the plump woman up in the air, taking the arm right off. The children stared at him owl-eyed, sensible enough not to scream.

The grey-skinned aliens suddenly realized they were fighting a battle on a second front and turned in unison as though they were soldiers on a parade field, the clack of their low-tech weaponry giving a singular 'thump as the drones shifted into a different battle protocol. Steve saw them then, Dominican's, Azian Boyz, Bloods, Crips, more gangs than he knew the names of. Mangy looking junkyard dogs, hungry for a fight. Fat kids with triple-fat goose down jackets and expensive sneakers in gang colors intermixed with scrawny kids who looked like they hadn't had a decent meal in months.

"Good boys," Steve said to himself, a feeling of pride swelling in his chest as he spotted Vasquez, his hair shaved short in a crew cut in preparation for his induction into the Army, give the hand signal he knew meant 'rumble.'

Gang kids rushed out from the shadows they had lived in their entire lives, more intimate with the darkness than the light of day. The nighttime was their mistress, their lover, their friend. The gang kids knew these streets intimately, every bush to use for cover to dodge the cops, every tree that could be climbed and used for a perch to mug some unwary businessman and liberate his wallet, every stick or fence post that could be picked up and used as an impromptu weapon. The gang kids _were _the weapon. And Vasquez knew how to wield his peers intimately like James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

"Move forward, move forward!" Steve shouted at what few soldiers remained. He lunged into what was now the rear-guard of the drones, distracting them while thousands of hooligans the NYPD considered refuse poured out of the shadows and fell upon the drones like ravenous beasts, far too many for whatever command protocols the puppet masters were running to process and address at once.

He fought his way to stand at Vasquez's side.

"That makes –twice- your boys saved my bacon," Steve grinned, swinging his shield at a drone that lunged for the machete Vasquez was wielding like a Samarai sword.

"You didn't tell me you were no super-hero," Vasquez said.

"There's no such thing as a super-hero," Steve said. "Only guys like you and me wearing funny costumes."

All around them the shrieks of dying drones filled the air. Terrified civilians, emboldened by the sight of gang kids getting the better of the alien drones using nothing but shanks and makeshift weapons, with the occasional gun, grew bold and fell upon the aliens, sheer numbers overwhelming them. Steve heard the rumble of motorcycle engines and looked up to see a gang of bikers chug into their midst swinging ugly sticks and chains, pulling down aliens so the gang kids could finish them off. On one of the motorcycles was … Thor?

"Commander Rogers," Thor shouted from the back of a Harley Davidson, looking a little worse for the wear from his recent tangle with the Leviathan. "I see thou hath this situation under control?"

Steve glanced at Vasquez, his hands moving easily in the hand signals the gangs had been using for decades in this city to communicate, the kids accustomed to moving as a single unit.

"Not me," Steve said. "Vasquez. If I bite the bullet and go visit your father in Valhalla, make sure Fury gives this kid a medal."

Thor swung down Mjolnir at an alien that rushed at the driver of the motorcycle which had given him a lift, shouting a colorful slogan about some sort of ice monster as he knocked the creature senseless. The driver had the colors 'Hells Angels' emblazoned across the back of his motorcycle jacket, his long grey beard and hair fitting right in with Thor's colorful Asgardian attire.

The grey-skinned drones regrouped, the puppet masters instituting a _new _fight protocol to go after the gang leaders … and Steve. The aliens ignored the unarmed civilians, some of them hanging off of arms or legs like gnats, and moved towards anyone wielding a weapon. They began to beat back the gang kids, most of whom only had tire irons, switchblades, and other primitive weapons.

"Fight together!" Vasquez shouted, signaling such with his hand. "We gotta stick together as a single gang or they're gonna git' us!"

"Humans!" Steve shouted. "Humans!"

"Humans! Humans! Humans! Humans!" the gang kids began to chant, the civilian New Yorkers taking up the chant behind them as less well-armed people harried the drones that were going after better-armed people. Steve glanced up just in time to see one of the drones bring down the butt of his weapon on the head of the plump woman who had watched his back using Bernice's bat'leth.

"Drat!" Steve leaped forward just in time to stop the woman's two children from leaping onto the drone and sliced it with his shield. A score of drones spotted him and recognized he was a high-priority target and rushed at him in unison. Something exploded to the rear of them, the 'whoosh' of the arrow registering just before the grenade tipped arrow exploded. Above him, he heard the sound of jet engines … no … pulse reactors. Reinforcements were finally here.

"I heard this was where all the action was," his radio earpiece crackled down from where it had fallen from his ear, only still attached to his uniform because it had been clipped to his shoulder. "You got to get these people out of here. Now."

"It's about time you flyboys got here," Steve told Tony Stark. "Where's Clint perched?"

"Just dropped him off on the dome of City Hall," Colonel Rhodes said. Steve noticed Rhodey was cautious about firing his weapon, probably low on ammunition. "But that isn't your biggest problem. Look!"

Colonel Rhodes pointed to a shadow which moved to blot out the moon.

"The mothership," Steve said, his momentary feeling of elation dying on the vine. The mothership was advancing upon the city. Already he could see the same kind of energy weapon the shapeshifters had used to destroy Los Angeles glowing blue as the ship advanced on Manhattan. Steve knew now why the Other had tried to round up civilians. He was going to destroy this city and needed replacement drones.

Several Special Forces units landed on alien gliders and joined the fight, finally beating back the grey-skinned drones with the addition of weapons that actually still had ammunition in them. Somewhere off in the not-too-far distance, Steve could hear the Hulk roar and the sound of smashing.

"It would be my honor if you would take this, Sir," one of the Marine's handed over his glider.

"Thanks," Steve said. He turned towards Vasquez and the gang kids, although now that he looked he realized a lot of them weren't just kids, but older gang bangers, the kid's parents. "Take these people and get them underground, into the deepest subway tunnels. When that thing fires upon the city, it's going to flatten it."

"Got it, man," Vasquez gave him a high five. He gave the hand signal. The gang members and members of the community fell in behind him, herding the regular civilians out of City Hall plaza where they had been stranded just before the onramp to the now defunct Brooklyn bridge into someplace more defensible. Vasquez gave him a halfway-decent facsimile of a military salute before he disappeared back into the shadows from whence he had come, a wraith once more.

The plump woman was helped to her feet by her two children and an Asian Boyz. She was unsteady on her feet, blood pouring down into her eye from a blow to her head, but held the bat'leth aloft with a grin.

"You said you needed this back," she said.

"I do," Steve said. "Thanks."

"I got to fight an alien invasion alongside Captain America using a Klingon bat'leth," the woman smiled. "Who needs Cosplay anymore?"

Steve had no idea what cosplay was, but he took the weapon and strung it back across his back, the situation increasingly under control as civilians gave up scarves and other articles of clothing to tie the grey-skinned aliens hands behind their backs.

"What's the plan?" Steve asked Tony Stark.

"Plan?" Tony said, his voice sounding mechanical through his Iron Man suit. "There isn't any. There. Ship. Let's blow it up."

"The B2-B got shot down," Steve said. "I saw it."

Tony tapped his helmet.

"Look to your east."

Steve looked up to see a second ship racing towards to intercept the first one. The Flying Dutchman.

"She doesn't know how to fire the weapons on that thing," Steve said. "We need that ship to survive."

"You want to tell her that?" Tony said, his voice bearing no sound of remorse. "Cause she isn't listening to anyone else. This city is her home."

Dozens of leviathans broke formation from where they were escorting the mothership and undulated towards the new threat, the Flying Dutchman. Jacquie opened fire, having obviously figured out how to get the weapons systems online, but she had no leviathans of her own to act as escorts. The two alien spaceships were the same size, but Jacquie maneuvered hers faster than the Others, probably because the 'queen' piloting it was not burdened with maintaining simultaneous control over dozens of leviathans and countless drones on top of maneuvering the ship.

"Let's go," Steve said, racing into the air.

He spotted Clint catch a glider off the roof of City Hall and race to catch up to where the Avengers and Thor sped towards the enemy mothership in a V-shaped formation like a flock of geese. They broke apart just in time to harass the Leviathans. If they could keep the Leviathans off of Jacquie's back, she just might have a chance.

One of the beasts turned and snapped at him, a tasty snack. Steve led it on a merry goose chase, zig-zagging and leading it away from the Flying Dutchman until it broke off the chase and headed back. He turned around and flew straight in front of its nose, slicing the leviathan in the face with his shield to get it to chase him again instead of launch drones. The enraged creature overrode its control protocols and gave chase in earnest this time, Steve forced to zig-zag to keep from being eaten. Unlike Iron Man and Colonel Rhodes, he was _not _wearing armor which would enable him to survive a trip through the belly of the beast.

The mothership fired upon the Flying Dutchman, her more experienced shapeshifter queen far more adept than the novice Jacquie at maneuvering in battle situations. The Flying Dutchman faltered, smoke pouring out of its main engine as the alien mothership advanced upon the wounded ship, ready to strike a death blow. All around them leviathans suddenly cleared, getting out of the death zone of the energy weapon which was about to fire not at Stark Towers as they had initially thought, but the only ship they had capable of defending this planet.

"Commander Rogers," Thor called into the radio. "A second mothership approaches from the south."

The mothership's energy weapon glowed brilliant blue, the same blue light Steve had seen in the infinity cube Red Skull had used to power his Hydra weapons. The second mothership rushed to its aid, releasing dozens of leviathans to help the first mothership kill off Jacquie and her crew.

"I'm so sorry I got you into this," Steve said into the air, not even able to apologize in person without a radio attuned to that frequency.

The mother ship fired.

The second mothership fired.

The fire from the second mothership hit the first mothership, not Jacquie.

The leviathans from the second mothership attacked the leviathans from the first mothership. The second set of leviathans released their drones, but instead of attacking New York, they attacked the drones under the command of the first mothership.

The first mothership turned and began to fire, not at the Flying Dutchman, which now had an enormous hole in its aft side but was still flying, but at the second mothership.

What…?

Approximately three dozen small shapes flew out of the second mothership and descended upon the swarm of drones the first mothership commanded. Steve sped towards the Other's ship, searching for a way to take the thing out before whatever disagreement the two sets of shapeshifters were working out above New York City finished and he had to finish the job. All around him, grey skinned drones cast off their command protocols and shrieked in terror, no longer obeying the puppet masters, but running from the small drones that sped after them like hawks after a fat chicken.

One of the small creatures sped in front of him and tore into an unfortunate grey-skinned drone, humanoid in shape, but biting and clawing into the creature's neck. It had gossamer wings like an insect, but the shape of a human child, perhaps eight or nine years old. The creature turned at him, its features child-like and innocent, and hissed, showing fangs dripping blood that were anything _but _innocent.

Fairies?

Whatever the creatures were, grey-skinned drone and leviathan alike were terrified of them. And Steve could see why. The diminuitive creatures were eating machines, fairy-like as they sped after each prey they hunted, but transforming into whitish slug-like creatures as they burrowed right through their quarries corpses, transforming back into fairies the moment they came out the other side. The hostile leviathans began to buck and whirl like broncos, bellowing like mad bulls as they whirled and tried to avoid having tunnels burrowed straight through their bodies by the voracious little shapeshifers.

One of the fairy-like creatures paused in front of him, its wings humming like a bees, and tilted its head. The creature did not hiss at him, but regarded him for a moment before speeding after the next enemy. Steve noticed that the 'friendly' drones all had red, white and blue paint splashed down their backs and across their gliders, as had the friendly leviathans. The colors of the American flag. He glanced up at the second mothership which had appeared and saw not the stars and stripes, but a crude approximation of the red, white and blue triangle that had adorned the bedspread of their wedding bed. The colors of the Puerto Rican flag.

"Bernice," Steve shouted, elated. He called into his radio. "Everybody … don't fire on that second ship. It's Bernice!"

Bernice fired upon the mothership, adding her firepower to Jacquie's. The alien ship began to tip, and then descend towards the ground, its engines wailing as it was unable to do little more than slow its descent towards the Manhattan skyscrapers. Steve noticed a small ship break away from the larger one and speed off into the darkness, trying to escape.

The Other. He would bet his life upon it.

Aiming his glider _away _from where the three dozen or so little fairies had gathered in a group mid-air and were now herding the hostile drones towards Central Park, Steve did not stay to watch the mothership plunk none-too-lightly onto the ground, a rough landing, but sped after the disappearing escape pod.

He'd be damned if he let the Other escape…

X


	80. Chapter 80

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to everybody who left reviews. Especially __**Prospero Hibeki, kiwi8fruit, Penny Tortoiseshell, ladymoonsoar, Adamantium Rose, Ciro, Guest, Marzipan, Yvaine-Star, Claire, blown-transistor, .Venus, LEPrecon, TrickPhotography, Beloved Daughter, Qweb, Kai-Dranzer, AoiKuroNekoSan, Mystewitch, ChildofFury93**_

_Sorry … am trying to finish this beast of as story __ Now that I'm done my non-fiction project, I have time to write again and keep all my delightful readers happy! Hope you all enjoy!_

X

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**Chapter 80**

Steve hung back, the small ship hugging the water so closely he could swear waves lapped at the bottom of the escape pod. Under the radar … literally. Two could play at this game. The glider had a small enough profile that, so long as he stayed low, he would be invisible to the Other's radar.

The escape pod sped west until it felt as though Steve would freeze and fall into the ocean. He could feel the siren call of the cold, whispering to him to close his eyes and give in to the sleeplessness which had plagued him ever since Bernice had been taken. He fought it. Bernice was alive. He was certain of it. But unless he got rid of the bastard who had taken her, she would always be a target. What protection did they have against an enemy who could assume any form?

Steve huddled behind the inadequate wind-shield of the glider and moved his shield to cut the wind blowing into his face. His suit gave _some _protection from extremes of weather, but it was December and he was over open harbor. He sighed with relief as the escape pod adjusted its direction and headed for the now-inactive Floyd Bennett airfield in southern Brooklyn. The pod landed next to a burned-out NYPD helicopter, shot down before it had gotten airborne. A figure leaped out and ran towards the hanger leased by the NYPD Emergency Services Unit for their air support. It came as no surprise that the bastard had gotten his claws into the NYPD, just as he had every other faction of government, at least _one _mystery solved.

Steve hung back until the door shut behind the man he was positive was the Other wearing human form. The NYPD Emergency Service Unit building was otherwise empty, every man and woman on the force currently fighting aliens or helping civilians escape. He circled the building and came in for a landing, hiding the glider behind a parked truck, just as the hanger door slid open. There were only supposed to be SWAT vehicles and training equipment stored at this base, but inside the building was a NY State Police helicopter. With such transportation, the Other could fly straight through the numerous police and military support vehicles swarming the city, subduing the remaining drones as the Avengers stormed the downed enemy mothership without arousing suspicion and escape.

He'd be _damned _if he let that happen! If the Other had his claws into both the NYPD and State Police, that meant he had a mole someplace inside the command structure. He dared not alert the others using normal channels. Steve changed frequencies on his radio to one they had quietly agreed amongst themselves would be a default frequency after the Natashimposter incident.

"JARVIS," Steve called into the radio. "This is Cap. Could you please put me through to Tony?"

"Greetings, Commander Rogers," JARVIS greeted. "I am hailing him now."

Steve watched the man in the hanger begin to unstrap the chock blocks and other safety equipment keeping the helicopter secure inside the hanger and begin to do his circle check. As he watched, the man pulled a state police jumpsuit out of one of the lockers and pulled it over his clothes. The blades on the helicopter began to spin slowly as the engines began to warm up. The Other was going to fly it right out of the hanger? Cocky bastard!

"Yo!" Tony's voice came over the radio. "Where'd you go, Cap? It's not like you to disappear for the mop-up."

"The enemy leader is trying to escape," Steve called into the radio. "He's got a New York State Police chopper stashed at Floyd Bennett. Bell 206B. Tail number N43COP."

"That chopper was reported downed several months ago, Commander Rogers," JARVIS chirped in. "Supposedly it crashed."

"Well I'm looking at it right now," Steve said. "And he's firing up the blades."

"That means he's got a mole inside the NYPD," Tony said.

"My thoughts exactly," Steve said. "Which is why I'm using _this _channel."

"We're tied up _here _clearing out the downed enemy ship," Tony said. "The Chitauri are putting up one hell of a fight. We're getting ready to storm the queen's chamber."

"How's Bernice?" Steve asked.

"Don't know," Tony said. "The minute the enemy mothership went down, she pulled her leviathans back on board and went into orbit. Are you certain it was her?"

Steve couldn't help but smile. Only Bernice would have known to put the lone-star triangle of the Puerto Rican flag on her stars-and-stripes and not simply a generic American flag to mark her ship.

"Positive," Steve said. His smile turned to a frown. "There are still 34 more motherships invading Earth. I hope she's not taking them on alone."

"We have reports of other Chitauri spaceships attacking one another all over the world," JARVIS chipped in. "Jacquie said the Earth-based Chitauri have temporarily joined forces to fight off the space-based Chitauri, but they only have nineteen intact motherships. Plus the three we stole. Jacquie has also gone back into orbit. She said she's going to rendezvous with the U.S.S. Sherman to take out the mothership moving down the Mississippi River. That's the one that took out Chicago."

Chitauri … defending Earth? He remembered what the Natashimposter had hissed as she had gutted him alive. _'You have no idea what you have just done.'_ By weakening the Earth-based shapeshifters, had they emboldened the Other to invade?

His attention was drawn back to the tall, blonde man stowing crates into the cargo area of the NYPD helicopter. The blades were moving at full speed now and the engine would be almost warm enough for the shapeshifter to take off.

"I don't have time to figure this all out now," Steve said. "Alert the other Avengers without making a general call that might alert any moles to watch for that tail number. I'm going in to see if I can't slow him down."

"We'll be there as soon as we deal with this little … oh fuck!" Steve could hear an unearthly yowl that was most definitely not human and the sound of M17's and pulse reactors firing in the background. "Sorry, Cap! Gotta go!" Tony's voice cut off.

It was up to him. He crept along the drainage ditch until he was out of the line of sight of the open hanger door, then sprinted to the corner of the building. Shield? Or Bernice's strange pronged weapon. He had sworn after he'd killed the one impersonating his wife that he would tear the Other apart with it, but even sharpened it was a less effective weapon than his shield. On the other hand, he'd had amazingly good luck with the weapon so far, or as Tony put it, some god thousands of people called 'Trekkies' worshipped named Gene Roddenberry smiled down from heaven whenever he used it. He could always switch to his shield as a backup. He drew the pronged weapon and held it outright with both hands. Killing this thing was not a given.

"Faugh a ballagh," Steve whispered the ancient Irish war cry he'd been reminded of earlier today. He slipped into the hanger, thankful the ruckus created by the spinning rotors of the warming helicopter drowned out the sound of his boots hitting the concrete slab. The man slammed shut the rear door of the chopper and turned to get into the cockpit. Don't turn he prayed.

His luck ran out.

The man turned and looked at him. Tall, as tall as he was, blond hair, blue eyes. But for the man's brutally square chin and the eerie, cold glint to his eyes, Steve may has well been looking into a mirror.

"Athair?" Steve said, remembering the name he had called late each night, after nine o'clock usually, when the big, gentle man he had called athair, father, would come home from work, bone weary and filthy, to eat a meager supper of soup and bread and listen to his wife and son take turns spinning cheerful blarney about their day.

The man smiled, but it was a predatory grin that flashed his incisors almost as though they were fangs, not the grin his athair, his father, had given him each night as he had snuck out of bed and rushed into his father's arms.

"The pup has whelped and comes looking for scraps," the man said in a lilting brogue, so much like his father's voice that it caused chills to run down Steve's spine. He held out his arms. "Come give your father a hug, boy."

Steve froze, the bat'leth poised in his hands to strike to one side or the other as the weapon had been designed to do. The man's voice, his mannerisms, everything about him spoke of the man who had died back in 1929, but Steve new it was a lie. It _had _to be a lie. His father had died in the building where they had traced the viper into its nest. This was the Other. His father's killer.

"You're not my father," Steve said. "Why do you assume his form?"

"I have many forms, man out of time," the Other flashed that deadly grin. "This one was always my favorite. If a bit simple-minded." The Other rubbed the facsimile of his father's strong jaw. "There's something about this form that makes people just want to believe everything you say and trust you to save the day."

Steve's hand unconsciously moved to touch his own jaw, more pointed than that of his father. His mother's jaw. The super-soldier serum had brought out many of the latent traits inherited from his father that had lain dormant in his DNA, but it had not overridden his mother's chin. Or her heart. His father had always been physically strong, but it had been his small, thin _mother _who had never given up no matter what, not his father. Night after night, when his father had wanted to throw in the towel and move back to Ireland, it had been his mother who had urged him to stay. For _his _sake. After decades of famine, Ireland was a country with few prospects for an American-born boy.

"It takes more than looks to be a leader," Steve retorted.

"And yet nobody wanted to follow you when you still carried the pollution from your mother's DNA," the Other laughed. "Doctor Erskine was clever, yes he was, when he found a test subject who carried both Deviant and Eternal blood in equal measure. And then my brother had to go and try to replicate his accursed experiments. Thanos is displeased with this world."

"I don't care about your false gods," Steve said. He remembered the words the Natashimposter had said to the agent the Other had sent to free Count Rugen. Or kill him. They never _had _figured out which. "You're not in charge here, Other. I am."

"We shall see, worthless curr," the Other laughed in his lilting brogue. He turned as though he was about to climb into the chopper, and then lunged at Steve unexpectedly, his hands already beginning to transform into the crab-like claws of a Chitauri.

Steve swung up the bat'leth, aiming straight for the elbow joint between the claw and the more slender armored limb which was the only weak point in a creature with an exoskeleton to protect it. The arm had not yet finished hardening in its transformation. The Other bellowed in rage as black blood spurted out of his bicep. Steve swung again with the opposite end of the tined weapon, but the Other had finished transforming, leaving only his father's face upon his hideous crablike exoskeleton so that he could mock him.

"You wouldn't kill your own father boy, would you?" the Other taunted.

"You're not my father," Steve said, ducking as several smaller claws and a stinger erupted out of the Other's back and aimed at his forehead. He cut off the Other's stinger, ensuring at least that he wouldn't get injected with _that _until the creature was able to regenerate another one. The Other growled.

"There are two ways a Chitauri can assume the form of another," the Other laughed at him. "Through the uplink created by our queens hive mind, or by killing our victim and devouring his brain."

"Bastard!" Steve cursed.

"Such a tasty organ," the Other laughed as his claws snapped at Steve's throat, just barely missing it. "The human brain. Especially when eaten fresh and raw."

Steve was knocked on his back, the bat'leth saving him from having his head severed from his neck by the Other's snapping claw. He rolled and threw up the weapon. The Other slammed down his claw and snapped the steel blade in half, earthly metal being inadequate to cut through the stronger parts of whatever natural substance made up the Chitauri shapeshifters's outer shell. Steve scurried backwards on his back, just barely avoiding being decapitated by the snapping claws as the Other moved over him, taunting him with horrible words about how horribly his father had died as Steve just barely avoided being next. The shield clattered against the concrete slab from where it was still strapped to his back, so close and yet so far. Steve rolled so he could free it. He grunted in pain as the Other slammed both claws down against his back, the shield making a metallic clanging sound as the claws slid harmlessly off. Harmless, that is, except for how badly the impact compressed Steve's breath, knocking the wind out of him. The Other picked him up dangling from the strap of his shield, and held him in front of him so he could stare into his face with his insect-like body and his father's face.

"Guess you're not so super after all," the Other said.

The Other snapped at his neck.

There was a flash of red. Steel. Wings. The Other reeled backwards, almost dropping him.

"You're not supposed to interfere!" the Other shrieked.

Something cut through the strap the Other was using to dangle him mid-air. Steve fell to the ground, catching a glimpse of red. His vision swam for a moment as his head hitting the concrete made him see stars. When he regained focus, there was nothing there. Nothing, that is, except for the seven-foot-tall enraged Chitauri lunging at him wearing his father's head for a death blow.

Steve swung the shield up. It made contact in the one weak point the Other had left in its otherwise impenetrable armor. His father's head. With a shriek that suddenly stopped, Steve felt the shield cut through the Other's neck and, with a sickening plop, watched his father's face fall to the floor.

The head lay there, his father's blue eyes staring at him as the mouth moved with words that no longer had lungs attached to make any sound. The head was not the nerve center of these shapeshifters. The headless body moved, eyestalks already erupting out of the back of the creature to make up what it had lost in the head Steve had just cut off. But the Other now had imperfect vision, enabling Steve to get at him with his shield. And without his father's head there, slowing his reaction time down, Steve showed the Other no mercy as he hit at the nerve center they had learned seemed to be the place to hit to _really _kill the bastards.

"This is for kidnapping my wife," Steve hissed as he sliced through the Other's midsection. "And this is for killing my father." He slammed the shield into the Other again and again, dismembering it the way he had been forced to dismember every other shapeshifter he had killed. "And this is for making my mother grieve!"

He slammed down the shield again and again and again until nothing but small pieces remained, twitching upon the concrete slab. There was only once piece left, still trying to taunt him. Steve stared down at the facsimile of his father's severed head.

"My father was a _good _man," Steve said.

He sliced through the last piece that could possibly regenerate, his father's head. And then he fell to his knees and vomited until nothing left remained in his stomach. Thankful the other Avengers were not here now to see him, covered in his own blood and chunks of black gore from the now-dead Other, Steve sat upon the ground, his back leaning against the landing gear of the chopper, and sobbed.

At last he had no more tears to cry. Bernice was alive. He stared east across Broad Bay wetlands until the sky grew pink and hopeful with the dawn. He had work to do. Rising to his feet and kicking black chunks of gore off the landing gear of the chopper, which had been running all this time, although somehow in his anguish he had not noticed the noise, he hopped into the cockpit and flipped the radio to the military command channel, heedless as to whether or not any mole remained to hear him.

"Avengers … this is the Cap," he called. "The Other is dead."

Pushing forward the controls of the chopper, he tilted forward the blades and did the one thing you were _never _supposed to do. Fly a helicopter straight out of the hanger. Answering queries from command as he piloted the chopper into the air and headed back towards Manhattan, where the other Avengers were finishing mopping up the now defunct head alien queen.

"Has anyone gotten any word about my wife?" Steve called into the command frequency.

"She took out the mothership that flattened London, Antwerp and Frankfurt," Maria Hill's voice came over the radio. "We've heard nothing since."

Steve glanced into the east, the direction his wife had headed. The chopper was not capable of crossing the Atlantic. He would just have to wait and pray she would be okay.

The sun gave its answer by climbing, at last, above the horizon, and shining a ray of light from the direction Bernice had gone.

X


	81. Chapter 81

_Whoops! Forgot to list my reviewers in the last chapter! Went back and added everybody in case you read it before I updated! Sorry about that!_

_My appreciation to all the readers pushed up the reader numbers, and also everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts list. Special thanks to everybody who left NEW reviews, including __**Beloved Daughter, Mystewitch, Yvaine-Star, Lori B.H., Tink508, LEPrecon, Guest, Penny Tortoiseshell, **__and __**Courtney.**_

_At last … the long-awaited reunion, Part I. (Hey … if Breaking Dawn can have a Part I and Part II, so can I!)_

_Thanks for reading!_

X

X

**Chapter 81**

"They're coming!"

Steve glanced up from where he was moving through the ranks of former enemy grey-skinned drones with Jacquie and Count Rugen, trying to explain to the confused creatures how they had been enslaved on _one _planet and awoken on a totally different one, lord only knew how many years later, surrounded by what was to _them _pink-skinned aliens. And they had woken up, of all days, on Christmas morning. What a Christmas present! And what an unusual 'sleigh' they had taken to end up here!

"Bernice?" That anxious sensation he had been feeling ever since he had learned Bernice had taken on not one, or two, or three motherships, but no less than seven caused his heart to flutter in his chest. If _he _had surprised everyone by turning out to be a passably decent soldier once Doctor Erskine had improved his physique to match his heart, Bernice had surprised even _him _by how aggressively she had gone after the Other's remaining minions and methodically taken them out one mothership at a time.

"Yes." Jacquie still wore the helmet Tony Stark had rigged to enable her to use the uplink to the mothership, but thankfully they had been able to disconnect her from the command chair.

"Where is she going to land?" Steve asked.

"La Guardia airport," Jacquie said. "There are too many of them to land in Central Park."

"Too many?"

"The entire earthbound Chitauri fleet is flying in to parley with the President," Jacquie frowned. "She promised them amnesty if they helped us save earth, but she is worried that the President won't go for it. Some of them are war criminals who participated in the World War II genocide."

Steve grimaced. He was one of the few people still left alive who had witnessed what the Nazi's had done to the Jewish people first-hand. But this was a different century and few were still alive who had witnessed the holocaust first-hand. A few faded photographs was not going to be enough to convince a grateful planet to alienate the very species who had just pulled their bacon out of the fire.

"Maria?" Maria Hil had been placed in charge of the New York City mop-up while Nick Fury was off mopping up someplace else. Her arm was out of the sling, but she still grimaced whenever she bent a certain way, reminding him it had only been a month since she had taken a bullet to the abdomen.

"Go!" Maria pointed to where Tony Stark and Thor were taking turns bragging about which one of them had taken out the biggest targets during Battle Earth. Colonel Rhodes watched the exchange with bemusement, his silver War Machine helmet tucked neatly under his arm. "And take _them _with you."

"For security?"

"To get them out of my hair before their bickering drives me insane," Maria Hill snapped. "That's an order, Cap!"

Steve shot her a grin. Jacquie and Count Rugen were needed here, while Bruce Banner was still sleeping off his most recent adventure as the Hulk. The big green man had stumbled in carrying a woman who had just given birth and a newborn, placing them down as gently as a leaf before mumbling 'night-night' and promptly going to sleep. It was a frigid Christmas morning and his feet were freezing inside his boots. He decided to take the police helicopter instead of a glider.

"Clint?" Steve's voice was filled with elation. "Do you want a lift?"

His grin died as he recognized that shadow that had been in Clint's eyes ever since the archer had shot Herr Kleiser. Steve had hoped Natasha or his own father would be found amongst the human computer drones imprisoned upon the Other's ship, but neither one of them had been there. He did not dare tell Clint what the Other had told him about his _own_ father's manner of death. Back in 1945, traumatized French villagers had whispered tales of brain suckingshape shifting aliens. The Other had only confirmed his worst fears. But Clint didn't need to know that. Let him continue believing Natasha had been killed outright in battle. It was the way she would have _wanted_ to die.

"Sure," the archer answered with his usual paucity of words. Clint was older than Steve, around forty, but until now his team-mate had never looked _old._

Steve climbed into the Bell 430 and began warming up the engines, the blades kicking up puffballs of snow flurries that had fallen over the course of the day like little the snowflakes inside a snow globe. Clint climbed in beside him and asked him to wait. A few seconds later Bruce Banner came shuffling out from the SWAT truck where he'd conked out and rushed up to the chopper, his hair disheveled and the SWAT uniform they'd scrounged up for him buttoned up all wrong. He looked like the stereotypical absent-minded genius.

"Steve, Clint," Bruce said with his usual passivity. "I hear we are being invaded again?"

"Yeah," Clint said. "Twenty-seven ships full of illegal aliens."

Bruce laughed at Clint's rare joke. Between the three of them, they probably managed to squeak out one joke per month. And that was on a _good _month. They relied upon Tony Stark to be their comic relief. And Thor, who was comic without meaning to be. Steve piloted the chopper into the air, noticing Bruce Banner's smile as he waved to the young woman and her baby who had lingered to say goodbye.

"Single mother," Bruce said. "The baby's father abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant. She named the baby Bruce Hulk Jones. Said it would give him somebody to look up to instead of a deadbeat dad."

For the first time since Steve had known him, it appeared the thought of _both _of his identities being worth looking up to pleased the mind-mannered doctor. From the debriefing the woman had given SHIELD, it had been the Hulk who had finished delivering the baby and then taken out two leviathans and a boxcar ship to protect it, not just Bruce.

He spotted the mothership fleet moving slowly from the south the moment the chopper lurched above the skyscrapers. It struck him how very _Bernice _the manner of their approach was. Rather than coming from the sky, she was leading them through New York Harbor, past the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island, before turning up the East River to make their way to La Guardia. Along the river, grateful New Yorkers lined up, waving colorful scarves, hats and banners, cheering on their enemies-turned-saviors. It gave Steve an uneasy feeling. An _'I once had one of those bastard's claws in my guts_' kind of feeling.

He set the chopper down at the air traffic control tower as police and security staff cleared the runways. Military vehicles poured in and lined up in formation just outside the anticipated landing area, trying to walk that fine line between being a deterrent and presenting a hero's welcome. Over the radio, Steve could hear net control apprise them the President was on his way in on Air Force One and would meet with the Chitauri leadership to discuss terms of an armistice.

One by one the enormous oval-shaped ships glided in, their propulsion systems surprisingly quiet given the size of the things, and settled upon the runway in a circle. Some were barely flightworthy, others had only non-critical damage and still worthy of space flight. Each ship had painted the flag of whatever nation had flushed them out of their volcanic lairs on their underside. One ship with an American flag limped in and suddenly lost power, crashing the last few hundred feet onto the runway. Smoke poured out of the engines. The ship they had believed destroyed when they had flushed three out of their west-coast lairs. Not destroyed, after all. But pretty darned close.

"Help them," Steve ordered over the radio. "Treat them like any other downed airplane. Put out the fire and treat the injured."

Emergency response vehicles, ambulances and fire engines equipped with special foam for dousing fires on airplanes rushed forward, nervous firefighters jumping out like busy ants to lend assistance to grey-skinned aliens. This was not Bernice's ship. Her ship hovered above the field until the other ships had all landed before setting down in the middle, obscuring the Puerto Rican flag she had painted on the underside. Proper military protocol demanded that he wait for the other party to disembark and gather in a formation to greet them, but he could not help but break into a run, his heart racing with anticipation. He wanted to see her again! He wanted to see her again and reassure himself that she was alright so badly that it _hurt._

One of the hatches descended from Bernice's ship. Steve stopped and allowed the other Avengers to catch up with him, Clint and Bruce on one side, Iron Man, Thor, and Colonel Rhodes on the other. He glanced back to hear the tap-tap-tap of a cane and spotted Matt Murdock moving through the troops to join them, out of his leather armor and disguised as his alter-ego once more. Daredevil's longshoremen and teamsters had _held _the Lincoln Tunnel, enabling hundreds of thousands of civilians to escape.

With a clank-clank-clank, thousands of grey-skinned drones marched out in formation from Bernice's mothership and lined up in neat, militaristic lines straight out of a George C. Scott movie. They moved with that precise control of a puppet drone, but as they gave a very U.S. military salute and spread their legs in the 'at ease' position, Steve noticed their facial expressions bore looks of curiosity, nervousness, and what appeared to be pride. Some control was being exerted over them, he thought, but just a little. One by one, the other motherships unloaded as well. _Those _drones were obviously still under puppetmaster control. Now that he had them standing side-by-side, it was easy to tell the difference. They emulated the maneuver Bernice's drones had done, but their faces were devoid of emotion as they stared straight forward.

The sound of a chopper approaching caught his attention. The drones moved backwards, leaving the center of the ring clear for the presidential helicopter to land. Steve and the other Avengers moved forward to flank the President the moment Air Force One touched down, just in case the Chitauri did not act the way Bernice _hoped_ that they would act.

"Mr. President," Steve greeted him. He and the other Avengers took turns shaking the tall, lanky president's hand.

"I've negotiated a lot of agreements in my day," the President said, his expression both jovial and serious, "but I must say I never thought I'd be seeing _this _kind of peace treaty in my lifetime." He turned to where the drones on Bernice's mothership had parted to make a pathway through. A dozen humans, or more aptly humans with cybernetic implants, marched out of the ship, their movements stiff and formal as though they were still fully under puppetmaster control. One of them was Bucky Barnes. Bucky barked a command. In unison, thousands of grey-skinned drones dropped to one knee, clapped their right hand over their heart, and began to recite the Pledge of Allegience in a sub-audible tone that was more _felt _than heard. JARVIS translated the words through Tony Stark's helmet.

"Well," the President said, his face breaking out in his trademark thoughtful smile. "This has to be the largest swearing-in ceremony I have ever overseen."

"Are you going to just grant them all citizenship?" Clint frowned.

"From everything Jacquie told me," the President said. "The grey-skinned drones were all slaves, acting under Chitauri command. Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, I am exercising my authority to grant them all conditional asylum, provided none is later proven to have been acting under their own volition to commit war crimes. We'll review their petitions for citizenship on a case-by-case basis the same as we would any other immigrant seeking asylum."

"What about the shapeshifters, Mr. President?" Steve asked.

"_Those _put me in a difficult position," the President's expression turned thoughtful. "We're just going to have to talk to them and figure out what to do. Bernice has explained this to them. They have agreed to free all drones, human or otherwise, in advance of negotiations as a gesture of good faith."

Bucky barked another order. The other human soldiers who were with him stepped aside, allowing Steve to see up the gangplank at last. Three humans walked out from the interior of the ship … no … four. One of them carried … himself? Bernice had her arm wrapped around Natasha's shoulders, a brutal metal band drilled into her head, her long black hair disheveled in the brisk December wind. Beside him, Clint cried out and broke into a run. The archer stopped a few feet in front of the disembarking party, visibly trembling as he tried to figure out if this was the _real _Natasha, or just another imposter.

"Go," the President said. "Check on the well-being of your wife. The pomp and circumstance can come afterwards."

Steve ran forward and swept Bernice into his arms, her greeting silenced as his lips crushed down upon hers and began to weep with joy. She weighed nothing. Nothing at all. Even _less _than she had weighed when she had been taken. Not the strange heaviness he had noticed when the imposter had tried to take her place. Some part of his mind registered Clint scoop up Natasha and do the same, but all he cared about was that he had his wife back. He _really _had her back.

At last they were forced to come up for air. He noticed the man holding a replica of himself.

"Is it really you?" Steve asked.

Bernice self-consciously touched the metal ring which had been drilled into her skull and gave him a shy smile.

"I look awful," Bernice said. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she did not appear to be in pain. She, like him, appeared to be overwhelmed with emotion.

"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes upon," Steve touched her cheek and wiped her tears, laughing with nervous joy as the physical sensation of feeling her snuggle into his chest allayed his fears that she might be a shapeshifter in disguise. His body had known what his mind had been able to figure out when the fake Bernice had tried to pass itself off as her. The _real _Bernice instinctively molded herself against his body as though they were one person.

"Jacquie said you had help?"

"Yeah," Bernice said. She shifted nervously and looked back up the gangplank of the ship. "Um … Steve. Remember when you said you wanted to have children?"

"Yes?" She looked as though he might become angry with her.

"I had to make an … um … promise to uh … take care of a few … uh … little ones to get our … uh … _friends … _to help us."

"Little ones?" Steve glanced at the grey-skinned drones and humans with cybernetic implants. There was no sign of kidnapped children as they had found in Melanesia.

Bernice glanced back up the gangplank. Although Steve was not hooked into this _uplink _Jacquie spoke of that enabled hives to communicate with one another, he was able to sense the image of _'come.'_ The air filled with the sound of buzzing wings as the small, fairy-like shapeshifters flew out and landed helter-skelter in a pack in front of Bernice, vying for which one could get closest to her. There were more than thirty of them, half male and half female. Had Steve not seen them swarm the Other's troops, he would have mistaken them for children.

"They _are _children," Bernice said as though reading his mind. "Babies, actually. No more than a day old. They should reach sexual maturity in a matter of months. But until then, we need to socialize them to interact with humans."

The little boy fairies hissed and nudged one another, vying for dominance, while the little girl fairies preened their hair and hissed at the boys, baring their fangs. Two started fighting until Bernice give them a sharp mental rebuke to behave. One little female stood apart from the others, a bit taller and more self-assured. She regarded him curiously, as though she were sizing him up. It was the same fairy which had sized him up during the battle for New York.

"What are they?" Steve asked.

"They're part human," Bernice said. She took his cheeks into her hands. "Steve. After you killed Red Skull, Herr Kleiser tried to replicate Doctor Erskine's experiment with his own children."

"These are _Herr Kleiser's _children?" Steve recoiled.

"These are _part human _children," Bernice said. She gestured towards the taller female fairy. "Squishy. Come meet your brother."

"Brother?"

"The Other used your father as a host shape."

"I know," Steve said. "Is he still alive?" He glanced hopefully over at the man carrying the look-alike man.

"No," Bernice said. She touched his cheek. "I'm sorry. The Other … he … your father is gone. But he, uh, Fred here was in the habit of taking tissue samples from all drones which passed through his lab. Since Herr Kleiser could not get his hands on _you _after your ship went down in the ocean, he used the next closest thing, your father's sample to graft human DNA onto Chitauri. The reason the Other invaded Earth was because their god, Thanos, does not want these children to exist."

"They are monsters!"

"They are children!" Bernice snapped. Her expression softened. "Please, honey. I gave my word. I promised him before he died that if he helped us, I would see that they were raised_ properly _amongst humans."

The one she called Squishy tilted her head, giving him an appraising look. Despite the use of his _father's _DNA, it surprised him how much the ferocious little creature looked like his _mother. _Or more precisely, _him _before he had been injected with the super-soldier serum and flooded with vita-rays to coax latent genes out of his genome. _All _of the fairies bore a resemblance to _him _before he had been transformed.

"The Earth-bound Chitauri have rallied behind _them,_" Bernice said. "And whoever cares for them. The black crab shape is not their natural shape. It was given to the senior queen at birth by Thanos. The one I killed. Their natural shape is … well … it's pretty shapeless."

"I saw," Steve said. "They look like big white slugs."

"I gave them a more attractive shape to hold," Bernice said. She gave him a sheepish grin. "I asked myself if I could have any shape I wanted, what would I want to look like?"

Squishy stepped forward. Her nostrils flared and trembled like a dog as she inhaled his scent. Behind her, the other fairies elbowed one another and vied for who was top dog in the pecking order of the pack. It was behavior Steve found familiar. _Gang _behavior. These kids were feral, barely controlled by Bernice's firm control over their minds. If _she _didn't take care of them, who would? And who would help her?"

"Sisters," Steve said. "And brothers. I guess I always wanted to have siblings."

Bernice gave him a grateful look. She gestured for Squishy to step forward. The others moved in behind her. It was obvious that this one was the ringleader.

"Usually there is only one female born per litter," Bernice said. "This one was 50:50. Probably the human DNA. But Squishy here … she is the strongest of the litter. The Chitauri always follow the strongest queen."

"Squishy?" Steve asked. It was a peculiar name for such a pretty little girl, with long blonde hair, aquiline features, emerald green eyes and dainty hands. One of her siblings bumped into her and pushed her forward. Squishy turned and hissed at them, baring her fangs. The sound of a striking cobra. The too-eager littermate whimpered and cowered, its wings drooping in a display of submission.

"Long story," Bernice said. "I'll tell you later. In the meantime, let's get this thing rolling so we can go home." She gestured for the man carrying the identical man to step forward, strangely authoritative compared to the shy woman he had married.

"This is Fred. The other Chitauri have authorized him to negotiate the first round with the President for general terms of agreement. After that, he will need to negotiate with each individual queen. Each ship is autonomous, answering to its own queen, but they look for leadership to the strongest queen which, lucky me, turns out to be me until they decide otherwise." She gave him a sheepish grin.

"And the man he carries?" Clint asked.

"That's Fred too," Bernice said. "It seems Shapeshifter Fred is rather fond of this particular shape. When we woke up the _real _Fred, he asked him if he could continue to hold it until after the negotiations. Real Fred agreed so long as he got to meet the President. He's a Korean War veteran and always wanted to meet him."

Asked? Since when did the Chitauri ask?

"Since Fred agreed to follow _our _rules," Bernice said, reading his thoughts. "I think it will be easier for the President to negotiate with them if he's not staring at a seven-foot-tall bug. Don't you agree?"

Steve remembered his first sight of a Chitauri.

"Yes."

He turned to his oldest friend. "Bucky?"

Bucky's expression was that same empty, emotionless one he had worn when he had thrown Steve out the hatch of the mothership. "You summons me, mate of our queen?"

"Bucky … don't you know me?"

"I know what our queen wishes us to know," Bucky said flatly.

"I tried," Bernice said. She had a look of remorse upon her face. "Steve … the Guardian drones … they did something to their brains to eliminate unwanted memories. He doesn't know who he is other than his designation as Winter Soldier. The only reason Natasha is okay was because the Other was the one who initially snatched her, not Herr Kleiser. The Other had no use for human drones as anything except cannon fodder like the grey-skinned drones."

"Winter Solder was KGB," Natasha chipped in. "Back when _I _was just starting out. I was supposed to be recruited into his group when Clint got me out. I had no idea there were really aliens pulling the strings."

Clint eyed Bucky warily. Whatever had gone on before, it appeared the three had a history that he wasn't aware of.

"Bucky," Steve said. "We'll fix this. I promise we will."

"I am at the queens command," Bucky said emotionlessly. "What she desires to fix, shall be fixed."

Bernice winced. "I've got a guardian drone in pretty bad shape inside. The enemy Chitauri gutted him alive like he tried to gut _you._ Fred has kept him alive, but before we do anything else I want him airlifted to a hospital."

Steve called into his radio. One of the ambulances that was treating the grey-skinned drones from the damaged mothership for smoke inhalation came over with a stretcher and went inside, guided by a grey-skinned drone who moved of his own volition. Moments later, they wheeled out a stasis pod, similar in shape to the one Doctor Erskine had used to transform him into a super-soldier. Had he gotten the idea from the Chitauri? Or had it been the other way around? Doctor Erskine had always been paranoid about revealing where he had gotten the knowledge.

"Bernice," Shapeshifter Fred interrupted, his voice warbling with age. The frailty was belied by the ease with which he cradled the copy of himself to his chest. "Real Fred is growing tired and he is very cold. Could we please allow him to shake hands with the President so we can bring him back inside? He is too frail to sit through negotiations?"

Real Fred opened and shut his mouth, his voice coming out little more than a breathy hiss. "Captain America, the North Koreans said you were not _real, _that it was propaganda lie to keep up morale when it looked like Hitler would win. But I see now your wife was telling the truth."

"Yes, Sir," Steve said. "I just had a little hiccup in time, like you. We'll get you fixed up good as new in no time."

Steve led the strange delegation forward so that Real Fred could shake the Presidents hand before being carried back into the mothership by Natasha and Clint. Whatever strange arrangement Real Fred and Shapeshifter Fred had worked out, it seemed the frail old man did not object to being brought back inside. Decades of forced inactivity had left his muscles too atrophied to move independently. It would take years of physical therapy to get them moving again.

Protocol or no protocol, Steve was determined not to let go of his wife, especially given how unsteady she appeared to be, though whether it was from the steel crown drilled into her skull or mere exhaustion was debatable. He let go of her just long enough for her to shake the President's hand before tucking her back against her side.

"Come inside," the President invited Shapeshifter Fred. "It's too cold to stand out here and negotiate in the cold. We have space to invite in two delegates from each ship to witness negotiations. I suggest the others follow the line of soldiers over there into Terminal B. There should be enough room in there to accommodate them all."

Bernice looked up at him, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement.

"They're free! Over thirty thousand of Count Rugen's people … free!"

The only thought that went through his mind was when would _she _be free of the tedious negotiations that were about to follow so that he could reassure himself, once and for all, that this really was his wife?

With a most _un-soldierly _growl, he pulled her closer and whispered the most _inappropriate _sweet nothings into her ear given they were about to negotiate the most important armistice in the history of the planet! He must have said it louder than he thought, because the President turned and gave him a knowing smile.

X

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	82. Chapter 82

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_Now that my big nasty non-fiction project is out the door and published on Amazon (yea!) I'm trying to give more attention to things like quality, plot, pacing, and overcoming my hatred of commas when you can add lots of short, sharp periods and sentence fragments to convey emotion! (Adamantium Rose __ ) Of course, we're really close to the end now and I'm two days overdue to start NaNoWriMo and my new original novel (so I can earn lots of silly bands and maybe a 'winner' tee-shirt for finishing 50,000 words in 30 days) so at this point perhaps my greatest achievement will be to wrap up as many unresolved plot bunnies as possible in the next chapter. If YOU have a plot bunny hopping around with its pink wiggly nose and fluffy tail that cries out for resolution, please PM me and let me know. If I can resolve it in the next chapter, I will. If not, in early December I will be posting an 'epilogue' chapter where all the hoppy little plot bunnies that are still left over can be resolved._

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**Chapter 82**

Bernice stifled a yawn. The sun had set hours ago and still negotiations were dragging on. She shot Steve a smile where he hovered, along with the other Avengers, watching over her. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and fresh battle scars scattered across his body, but he was still the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes upon. Her pencil moved onto the steno pad she had stashed beneath the negotiation table, sketching the scene before her of the President, Fred, and the Avengers standing in the background overseeing it all. Steve was, of course, front and center in her sketch even though he had wandered off to the side some time ago, conversing quietly with Bruce Banner and shooting wary looks at Shapeshifter Fred and the Chitauri babies.

"As much as I would like to promise amnesty to your brothers who incited the Khmer Rouge," the President told Shapeshifter Fred, "this is a democratic society. Once the initial glow of victory wears off, the survivors of that Cambodian genocide are going to come forward and demand retribution."

"But we did not _ask _them to murder their own people!" Fred protested. "Only to segregate the ones suspected of carrying Deviant DNA from potential breeding stock and send them out into the fields to work. _YOUR _species took it upon themselves to start killing all of the educated people!"

"Four years from now," the President said. "I will be out of office and a _new _president will take my place. One who may _heed_ the cry of elected officials who are answerable to the people to revoke those brothers visas on some technicality."

"But do you not have the power of a presidential pardon?" Fred asked.

"I do," the President said. "But I will not lie to you. In a democracy, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The Cambodian genocide is a lot closer in time than the Nazi Holocaust and the Soviet Gulags. There are plenty of survivors who are going to speak out against your people once the glow of victory wears off."

"I warned you of this, Fred," Bernice interceded. "Our moral code is different from yours. Just because you are willing to follow our rules _now _does not mean we are capable of pretending the past does not exist."

"I am not sure how the others will react when they learn only _some _of us are welcome here," Shapeshifter Fred said. The visage of the old man he was wearing lost some of that frail expression as Fred unconsciously shifted into what must have been a younger, stronger version of the man he had spent decades impersonating.

Bernice physically touched Fred's hand, projecting through the hive mind the mental image of what he looked like right now. Although she was still Bernice, the sudden inclusion of the thoughts and feelings of thousands of other individuals who thought differently than the way she thought had expanded her ability to see the world through alien eyes.

"Oops, sorry," Fred said with a sheepish expression that reminded her a bit of Doctor Nyi. He shifted back into the visage of the elder Fred.

To the hive-minded Chitauri, it was logical to eliminate any weakness which might jeopardize the hive. They were as brutally merciless with their _own _weak links as those they perceived in others, as the recent extermination of the Other's fleet had just proven. It was as difficult for _them _to understand a species that prized mercy as it was for _humans _to understand a species who prized strength and logic. She could now understand why Herr Kleiser's price for helping had been one small act of mercy. The Chitauri would not have shown human offspring of a conquered leader the same mercy that _she _had shown the Chitauri babies. The fact that she _had _shown mercy … and subsequently controlled the swarm … was causing the Chitauri to reevaluate everything they thought they had known.

"Let's focus on what we _do _agree on?" the President said. "Two thirds of your people took no active part in the World War II genocides, or the Soviet purges, or Mao's uprising in China, or September 11th. What about the Rwanda Genocide?"

"The African continent is largely pure-blooded human," Fred said. "They have neither Eternal, nor Deviant DNA in any measure interesting enough for us to meddle in their affairs."

Bernice watched the shadow dance across their half-Kenyan president's face before he tucked it neatly behind a thoughtful expression. Whatever the President thought about the land of his father being designated 'uninteresting,' they would probably never know. The back-and-forth discussion continued. Steve tried to maintain a professional expression as they discussed the extermination of millions of people as though they were discussing stock trading accounts, but when Fred went through the list of Chitauri who had participated in certain World War II battles, Steve began to unconsciously clench his fists at the sidearm he'd been forced to leave outside the negotiation room. She wished that _he _was connected through the uplink to the hive mind the way that Fred and the Chitauri kids were so she could reassure him.

She tried anyways. Herr Kleiser had been certain Steve had the ability to _see_ because the Chitauri babies had that ability and he had been right, but the gift was barely developed and erratic. She decided to distract him, sending him a naughty image of what she intended to _do _to him once they got the heck out of this meeting. Steve shifted suddenly and smiled. Yes. She could have all _kinds _of fun with her husband with this new ability the Chitauri had given her. She wondered if he knew the image had come from _her _instead of his own imagination?

"The international community has laws that declare once a cease-fire has been declared," the President said, "all ordinary soldiers who participated in that war and did not follow any orders that exceeded the parameters of the Geneva Convention will not be considered war criminals. That should cover the grey-skinned drones. How many of them did you say there were?"

"Thirty thousand," Bernice said. "Give or take a few. I have yet to touch the mind of one who was not operating under the influence of the Chitauri, although some of the higher-functioning drones such as Count Rugen were allowed to remain self-aware to some degree because it improved their ability to function autonomously."

She had been surprised when touching the minds of the grey-skinned drones that they did not view their enslavement with the same horror that humans did. They cared more about serving kinder masters than earning freedom because they were herd animals. Their social structure was more akin to the Chitauri than humans. The thought of being suddenly cut off from the hive mind, which they considered a gift, terrified them. The President had missed the negotiations that had gone on between her, the other Chitauri queens, and the higher-functioning grey-skinned drones who still possessed some self-awareness as Count Rugen did. The reason the shapeshifters were so willing to free the drones was because the drones were not all that anxious to sever all ties with them.

"That same convention will cover the Chitauri fairies," the President said, pointing to where they were sitting upon the floor, playing with toys as though they were ordinary children. "All children are born innocent of the crimes of their parents. If you have _other _Chitauri who were late-born, after the war crimes you have been so forthright about confessing, then we can offer _them _asylum as well."

The Chitauri fairies were in the room with her because, without her constant control over their minds, they were inclined to swarm towards the nearest food source and devour it, which they preferred to eat alive. They had voracious appetites and had turned their noses up to the eighteen-wheeler load of pizza she had had delivered until she finally coaxed them into giving it a try. They had promptly devoured the entire tractor-trailer full of take-out like wolf cubs descending upon a downed prey animal, _including _the cardboard boxes they had come in, but already she could sense their stomachs were rumbling for more. She could see why the other Chitauri had been skeptical she could control the swarm and anxious to stay out of their way until the creatures reached maturity, when their metabolisms would slow down.

Squishy was eyeing Mr. Stark with curiosity, attracted as _all_ Chitauri seemed to be attracted to whoever was the most obvious leader. Or at least what the Chitauri _defined _as leadership skills. Strong. Arrogant. Self-assured. She moved forward and slid her fingers along the blood red armor of the Iron Man suit, sending Bernice a mental inquiry as to whether Mr. Stark had an exoskeleton because _he _was part-human, part-Chitauri as _she _was. The other little fairies hung back, letting _her _take all the risk.

"So who's the cute little blonde?" Mr. Stark gave Squishy that look he instinctively gave _all _women, even though he had long ago given up chasing them in favor of Miss Potts.

Squishy hissed and gave Mr. Stark a look that communicated 'don't you give me any guff,' her gossamer wings crackling disdainfully as she bared her fangs. Steve laughed. That was often _his _instinctive reaction to Mr. Stark's antics!

"I think she be immune to thy charms, Merchant of Death!" Thor laughed. He strode forward and clapped his hand over his heart. "Fair maiden … I be Thor Odinson … of Asgard and Earth. Thou be a most fierce huntress. I was most impressed at how thee bored through the foul leviathan that gave chase over the city. I shall forever be thy servant."

Squishy stared up at the God of Thunder and gave him a sweet smile, no sign of the fangs she had shown Mr. Stark only seconds ago. None of the Chitauri kids had yet learned to replicate human speech, but they could understand it. She tilted her hand palm-upwards as though to communicate, 'it was nothing.'

"She's no fool," Bruce Banner elbowed him. "Only a couple of days old and already she knows the difference between a pickup line and a heartfelt greeting."

Bernice flipped a page on her sketchpad and began to doodle a picture of Squishy staring down the Iron Man. Steve shot her a sultry look that communicated 'when can we blow this joint like Clint and Natasha did.' The two had disappeared into the mothership under the auspices of bringing Real Fred back inside and then disappeared into an empty room, shutting the door in the Guardian's face with a curt 'do not disturb us under any circumstances.' Natasha was still connected to the hive mind. Every creature in their hive knew what the two were doing right now, though she suspected neither had any idea Natasha's 'specific skill set' was being broadcast live on Chitauri hivelink along with Clint's sexual prowess!

At last round one of the negotiations concluded. The President and Shapeshifter Fred arose from the table that had been set up in the airport overlooking the runway and shook hands, clearly visible so the Chitauri and drones who had gone back into their ships could see using whatever monitoring devices they used. A cheer broke out amongst the troops and a delegation of grey-skinned drones from each ship which stood as witnesses.

"Round One has been completed," the President said. "The two-thirds of the Chitauri who were not yet alive, or did not participate, in the Nazi, Soviet, Maoist, or Khmer Rouge genocides will be granted asylum. They will be treated the same way any other enemy soldier is treated at the conclusion of a war."

"And the other aliens?" Tony Stark asked.

"-I- am technically the only _alien_ still left alive," Shapeshifter Fred said. "Bernice wiped out the founding queen and hive. The rest of the Chitauri were born here, on Earth. In fact, under the laws of your country, many of them are already U.S. citizens because they were born on American soil. We have agreed to sort out the logistics using existing laws as much as possible."

"And what of the ones who committed war crimes?" Steve asked.

"That will be the subject of tomorrow's negotiations with the delegation of queens," the President said. "Shapeshifter Fred has been very forthcoming about which of his people committed which crimes, including many crimes we were not aware of."

"Will you bring them to justice?" Bruce asked. His eyes had a faint, green glimmer to them, contradicting the soft-spoken tone of his voice.

"We did not defeat the Other to rot in prison," Shapeshifter Fred said. "But … we understand the dilemma this poses. With the inclusion of Jacquie and Bernice into the hive mind, it enables us to see how things look from your moral code."

"There is talk amongst the queens that some may send out scout ships to find a _new _world to swarm to," Bernice interjected. "One that is not already inhabited by sentient creatures. Or … maybe we will have to think of something else. Given that these creatures just saved our planet, we will have to weigh the harms."

"No amnesty for war crimes," Steve hissed. "I saw first-hand what these bastards did to the Jews!" Bernice's hurt expression must have shown upon his face, because he suddenly looked remorseful at their first marital disagreement. "I mean … we just … we just _can't _say it didn't happen," he spoke more softly.

"We do not disagree with you, man out of time," Shapeshifter Fred said. His expression was one of remorse. "My brother began to change his opinion of your species the last seventy years. He felt strongly that our future was here, not with Thanos. If some within the hive must find another solution so that the rest of the hive can carry out their father's dying wish, then so shall it be."

Bernice already _knew_ what that solution was. Two-thirds of the hive was going to be invited to stay and begin integrating into the rest of humanity. Some of the rest had circumstances warranting a presidential pardon. A few were willing to serve modified prison terms in a 'prison facility' which would really be a research laboratory where they could work alongside Earth scientists. Shapeshifter Fred was a candidate for such a program. He had overseen the research committed on people such as Bucky Barnes to integrate them into the hive mind against their will, so was technically a war criminal, but his actions had not risen to the level of some of the other Chitauri who were thankfully deceased, such as Josef Mengele. Fred had spent most of his life locked down in the bowels of the mothership conducting research the same way Bernice's co-workers Ralph, Huojin, and Doctor Nyi did in the basement of Stark Industries, only _they _did so by choice. Fred said that so long as he had a light bulb and laboratory equipment to tinker on authorized research, he was willing to serve whatever sentence was handed down on him.

Some of the others, however, were less willing to pay their debts and a few had debts so horrific that they could _never _be repaid. The queens had put them under house arrest. Bernice understood from when she had touched the other queen's minds that if any member of the hive stood in the way of their hive's survival, the remaining members would turn on their black-marked brethren and kill them.

And for some reason, this thought did not disturb her….

Squishy yawned. Behind her, thirty-five little Chitauri put down the toys they had been playing with as though they were _normal _children and yawned as well, the occasional hiss or whimper breaking the silence. They understood from Bernice's thought patterns that this long, boring 'playdate' was now over and they could go eat some _real _food.

Bernice slid her hand into Steve's, causing the anger he had scarcely contained all afternoon as he watched Fred discuss war crimes as though he were discussing a baseball game to evaporate. _She _had made promises and, like him, she would not simply break them. Not even for _him_. They would have to discuss it later. _After _they had had a chance to reconnect…

"My husband," Bernice said sweetly, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief. "Would you care to escort me back to my ship? It is past suppertime for thirty-six little fairies and then they need to sleep." She squeezed his hand when she said 'bedtime' to signal that the Chitauri kids weren't the _only _ones she intended to put to bed.

The little ones took to the air, wings humming, and sped through the hallways and out the door of the airport lounge, across the runway and over to the truckload of live cattle that had been trucked in while they had been negotiating back into their ship without stopping first to salute the president. With an apology for their lack of manners, Bernice shook the President's hand and herded Shapeshifter Fred back to the ship. _S_omehow, she didn't think Steve would care to watch his little part-brothers and sisters devour animals alive. She formed the image in her mind of a fairy-like adult male and projected that image to Shapeshifter Fred, who promptly became fairy-winged Shapeshifter Fred.

"Watch over them," Bernice ordered. "Make sure they don't eat anybody they're not supposed to by mistake."

"Yes, my queen," Fred said, giving her a polite little bow like you might see a Japanese business person give to a higher-ranking businessperson. He sped off after them.

Cattle had been the alternative she had offered them at birth to satiate their natural hunger to eat _anything _that was alive. Unlike _human _children who were born with a shape and natural instincts, the shapeless pureblooded Chitauri offspring were more like viruses, invading and consuming any entity capable of sustaining their lives until they matured enough to begin assuming a shape. Because they were more formless than an adult Chitauri, they were nearly impossible to kill. These children were part-human, but the human part was still only 25%. Over time, as their thought patterns began to organize around acceptable and unacceptable hive behavior, they would acquire a taste for other food. Until then, Bernice had a feeling beef prices were about to shoot up because the voracious little creatures needed to eat 3-4 live cattle _each _per day simply to survive.

"This ship will be turned over to Squishy and her siblings once she matures enough," Bernice told Steve. "I am not a _true _queen. But she _will_ be one day. It's important we teach _them _how to exist so that they can teach the others."

"I don't trust them." Steve held her so tightly against his side as they walked together that it almost hurt, but in a good way. "Especially Fred. He turned on his own queen."

"Fred helped his brother splice together the little one's DNA," Bernice said. "Lower-ranking males are conditioned to make sure the strongest offspring survive. The former queen made a mistake when she decided their human DNA made them weak and chose to abandon them to swarm and die. Fred was not loyal to _me, _but _them. _So long as humans take care of the Chitauri babies_, _Fred will take care of _humans."_

"And Herr Kleiser chose _you _to raise them," Steve asked. "And therefore by default, _me?"_

"You are the strongest human male," Bernice shrugged. The Chitauri logic was clear to her. "Of _course _he chose you. It's … it's just part of their culture. Like when Odin took in Loki as a baby after he defeated Joffey and raised him as his own son."

"That didn't turn out so well," Steve said.

"You've spoken to Thor," Bernice said. "Now that he knows the truth, he can _see _all the ways the AllFather favored _him _and snubbed his brother. Keeping the truth from Loki and leading him to believe that perhaps _he _could one day rule Asgard instead of Thor was a mistake. These babies look to you as their older _brother._ So long as we raise them to understand they are a bridge species between two worlds and don't give them unrealistic expectations, they should be fine."

Steve stared down at his large, strong hand.

"So in other words, they're freaks," Steve said softly. "Like me."

"The only thing freaky about you,"Bernice said softly, "is how very _moral _you are. If you take them under your shield like you did with the gang kids, maybe _that _will be how they see themselves different from regular humans instead of resenting them?"

"Them?"

Bernice gave him a nervous smile. "Sorry. _Us. _The uplink … I've got three different species thought patterns streaming through my brain right now. It kind of changes the way you think. I have to use a lot more logic than I'm accustomed to using in my everyday life. It will make my father very happy, but you'll have to give me time to get used to it."

Steve touched the steel ring which had been drilled into her skull, his expression one of concern. Bernice winced. Until the Chitauri babies had matured enough to differentiate right from wrong, she did not _dare _ask Shapeshifter Fred to remove in favor of a helmet like Jacquie wore.

"So long as it doesn't change _you,_" Steve said softly. He had that innocent expression he sometimes wore that reminded her that, despite the time-skip which technically made him 93 years old and a whole heap of battle experience, her husband really wasn't all that much older than _she _was. And a hell of a lot less worldly in many ways.

She stopped in front of a doorway. "We … uh … it's a bit weird, but at least it's got a bed. Sort of."

Steve didn't care. He scooped her up into strong arms, cradling her against his chest as he carried her over the threshold. Bernice couldn't help but giggle at her husband's single-mindedness. After months of trying to lure him into behaving like any other red-blooded American male and being frustrated at his self-control, now that they were married the man was insatiable. He kicked the door shut behind him and carried her over to the bizarre raised platform which had served as a bed for the _prior _queen.

"I had the drones change the sheets," Bernice whispered.

That was all he needed to hear. With a growl that rumbled from deep in his chest, he lay her out tenderly upon the bed, careful not to bang the iron band drilled into her skull too hard against the mattress, and reminded her of how good it felt to be loved by a superhero.

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	83. Chapter 83

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**Chapter 83**

Steve shifted in his sleep and smiled, the pleasant dream he was having of dancing in the Stork Club with Bernice made all the more real by the feel of the real-life Bernice in his arms. Even in sleep, whether real-life sleep or the dream-version, he had yet to let go of her, so close had he come to losing her. The dream lingered as she shifted in his arms and caused him to rise a little closer towards the waking world. Eyes still shut, he kissed her hair and relished the warmth of her skin against his.

"Go back to sleep, sweetheart." He inhaled her scent, something else he had sensed was 'off' about the imposter but had been unable to put together until he had the _real _Bernice back in his arms. And this _was _his Bernice. He had made certain of it! Oh … about six times made certain of it! One advantage of the super-soldier serum was that it gave him unusual stamina to satisfy his wife. Not that he had any previous experience to compare it with! _She _sure seemed satiated by his amorous adorations. So satisfied that she had practically melted in his arms afterwards until Shapeshifter Fred had finally pounded on their door and informed them 36 little fairies needed to go to bed.

The dream lingered. He could almost _hear _the strains of Bing Crosby continue even though he was now almost fully awake. He touched the thin fabric of the white cotton undershirt she wore as a nightgown with regret, wishing it did not stand between his hands and her luscious breasts. _His _undershirt. It was long enough on her petite frame to cover just enough to not be totally scandalous. He ran his hand beneath the sheets to caress the curve of her buttocks where the shirt had ridden up and only a skimpy pair of underwear impeded his touch. Bernice smiled and snuggled closer, grimacing as the steel ring which had been bolted into her skull prevented her from resting her cheek against his chest the way he knew she _wanted _to sleep.

He stared around the queen's chamber. Bernice had made the drones strip the room of all personal effects of the prior queen, but he discovered _after _he had made love to her why she had taken this room. It was not out of any desire to seize the trappings of power, but out of necessity. The strange raised platform had a single purpose. Chitauri queens only mated with the strongest male. When one weakened, they would choose a _new_ mate to create offspring with. They did not do so out of love or sexual desire. The circular bed which sat in the center of an ever larger, slightly lower raised platform was not to share with the queen's lover, but for the swarm that resulted from any pairing. Chitauri offspring, it turned out, needed to stay close to their queen and be 'reminded' of how to hold a shape until they were mature enough to hold one on their own or they would devolve back into slugs.

Talk about unromantic! All around them, 36 little fairies snuggled on top of one another like puppies, purring in their sleep like cats. It was the reason _he _had been forced to put his boxer shorts back on and Bernice his tee-shirt! The _proper _thing to do would have been sleep in separate beds, but there was no way in hell he was going to let her leave his side, so he had compromised his 1945 values for the more practical ones of 2012.

He realized that the sound of Bing Crosby singing _I'll be seeing you _had not faded as a dream _should _fade upon becoming fully awake, but was still playing from somewhere outside of the queen's chamber. Had somebody put on the music for _them_? The Chitauri did not seem the type to grasp the concept of 'romantic interlude.' Light streamed through tiny cracks around the frame of the doorway from the other side.

"I'll be right back, sweetheart."

Bernice mewled in protest as he slid out from her embrace and covered her up with the blanket, pressing his pillow where he had lain only moments before so that she would not miss his warmth. Her mouth moved into a dissatisfied little moue.

"Steve?"

"It's okay, just going to go to the bathroom." He kissed her on the forehead. Bernice settled back into sleep.

He slid off the upper platform and gingerly stepped through the gauntlet of his sleeping brothers and sisters, careful not to accidentally step on any hands or gossamer wings. Bernice had introduced them and explained the inspirations for their appearances and names. Besides Squishy, who was named after a little friend of someone named Dory, there was a group she had designated 'Disney Princesses.' Names such as Snow White made sense to him as even _he _had seen that movies back in 1937, as did other fairy tale names such as Cinderella, Tinkerbelle, and Ariel. Some had names straight out of Lord of the Rings, such as Aragon, Legolas, Gimli, Galadriel and Arwin. But other names? Han Solo? Luke and Leia? Madmartigan, Eloradanna and Sorcia? Coraline? Jack Sparrow?

And then there was the poor little runt of the litter she had named Snape. Snape? What kind of a name was Snape? Steve looked down at his unfortunate little brother burdened with such a peculiar name, the little one's features dark and brooding as he contemplated the name Bernice had given him. Why Snape?

Steve had done the smart thing, of course, that _any _husband quickly learned to do to keep the marital peace whenever presented with a matter of artistic discretion involving his wife. He had shut his mouth, nodded agreement, and kept his opinions to himself!

Snape had been pushed to the outside of the platform, the coldest, least desirable place amongst the sleeping fairies and shivered without a blanket. If he was going to be charged with teaching these little ones right from wrong, the first thing he needed to teach them was that a super-soldier was supposed to _protect _the weak. If it had worked with the gang kids, who had all turned out alright when the world had needed them most, then it would work with _these _kids. He tugged at the blanket one of the other siblings was hogging and spread it so that it covered the both of them. There!

The music changed to a more upbeat tune, Glen Gray playing _My Heart Tells Me._ The light had grown brighter shining through the door, as though beckoning him to come dance. He stepped from the lower platform to the floor, grateful the Chitauri liked to keep things warm as his bare feet touched the deck. Bernice was wearing his undershirt and his Captain America armor still had blood splattered over it despite an attempt to rinse it off, so he had no choice but to go out into the outer chamber bare-chested and in his boxer shorts. He waved his hand over the sensor which operated the hatch and was blinded as the door swung open. The music grew louder as he stepped forward and heard the hatch shut behind him.

His eyes adjusted to recognize he was still within the confines of the Chitauri mothership, not the Stork Club where he _usually _went when he had these kinds of dreams … or died. He wasn't dead, or at least he did not remember _becoming _dead, so he must still be in bed with Bernice, dreaming. He reached for her sleeping form and came up empty, no warm goddess snuggled into his arms for him to worship. He glanced down, expecting to see he had dressed himself appropriately for this dream and was dismayed to see he was still dressed in nothing but his boxer shorts, his bare chest and bare legs quite inappropriate for a man to wear out into a public place back in 1945. His eyes adjusted to recognize the figure standing before him in the brilliant bright light.

"Hello, Steve," Peggy's dulcimer voice caressed his ears. She wore that red dress she had always liked to wear, with matching red gloves that went all the way up past her elbows and high, but not insensibly so, red heels. The kind of heels a gal could wear dancing until the sun rose the next morning, a favorite pastime of women back in 1945.

"Peggy!" He turned pink with mortification as she eyed him from lips to ankle, her gaze pausing at the six-pack of abdominal muscles he worked hard to keep in tiptop shape, despite the two jagged scars still visible until the super-soldier serum made them go away, and the pectoral muscles of his chest. Her lips turned upwards into a wolfish smile.

"Doctor Erskine was a master sculptor," Peggy grinned. She took a drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke out towards one side, then crushed it out beneath the toe of one high heel. "Come. Dance with me."

"Is this another one of those trick questions?" Steve asked with trepidation.

"No." Her dark eyes sparkled with that knowing look they had always had, as though she knew far more than _he _did. She had _always _known far more than he had, even when she had still been alive. Steve took her hand and carefully placed one hand upon her waist, even in his dreams neither daring to ever act inappropriately with Peggy, nor to act in a manner which might upset his wife. She felt as real in his arms as Bernice had only moments before, her figure warm beneath his fingers as they swayed to the old big band dance tune.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Steve asked.

Peggy gave him an enigmatic smile.

"I thought there were rules you were supposed to follow?"

"So I'll say three Hail Mary's and three Our Father's," Peggy said with not a single hint of remorse. Her eyes looked past his shoulder, into the blinding light. "Hazard of having worked all those years for Howard Stark. You learn there are rules, and then there are stupid rules that you can get away with bending if nobody likes the outcome if they _don't _get broken. Even your old adversary, Time, looked the other way for _that _one."

The sound coming from the light grew louder, men and women laughing, the clanking of tankards and the scent of roasted meat.

"I'm not going with you, Peggy," Steve said.

"I certainly hope not," Peggy laughed. "Do you think I bent about three dozen Eternal rules about Valkyries not interfering in affairs of mortals to then come take you?"

The light had grown brighter, the noise louder. He could see the shapes of the men and women who feasted forever in Valhalla until the Battle of Ragnorok erupted at the end of days, when all of the brave men and women who had gained access to Valhalla would fight at Odin's side.

"Then why are you here?" Steve asked.

"A warning," Peggy said. Her eyes grew serious. Those luscious lips he had once dreamed of kissing, the same lips that Bernice had inherited, tightened in a grim expression. "The Chitauri god is angry you snatched his prize lackeys away from his control. _Especially _the fact his number two lackey went ahead and created a mixed species hybrid powerful enough to guarantee the rest of the Chitauri would remain _here _instead of crawling back to Thanos with their tentacles between their legs."

"Bernice said Herr Kleiser was sent back by Time to tell me she wasn't my enemy," Steve said.

"Thanos is insane," Peggy said. "It's going to take the bastard a while to regroup, but when he does, he's going to make another attempt to seize Earth. And this time, he won't just want to capture it. He's going to destroy it."

Her words made his blood run cold.

"I thought you weren't supposed to tell me these things," Steve asked. "In fact, I thought you weren't supposed to interfere at all. It was _you _who stopped the Other from killing me, wasn't it?"

Peggy's gloved hand reached up to touch his cheek, her touch more tender than that of a simple friend, but less than that of a lover. Her lip trembled as tears welled into her eyes.

"I lost you once, Steve," Peggy said. "It took me a long time to let you go. William says I never really _did._" Her fingertips slid to touch his lips. "Much as I can't wait to have you join me and fight at my side, I could not bear to watch my granddaughter endure the same pain that _I _felt after I had lost you."

Her hand slid back down to his bicep, taking the lead as she always did even though _he _was supposed to lead her in a slow foxtrot. She looked away, quickly wiping the tear which had escaped to trail down her cheek, and coughed, pretending she had something in her eye. Peggy had always been tough as hell. It wasn't until he had died and come back that he realized the reason she had always acted so tough was because inside she was a little frail.

"Thank you, Peggy."

"All I did was distract him for a second and cut the strap," Peggy shrugged. "You did all the rest."

They danced a little more until the song began to wind down.

"I'm not dreaming, am I?" Steve asked.

"No," Peggy said. The song came to an end. She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "But now I've got to go."

She stepped backwards into the light. The red dress she had been wearing transformed into Asgardian battle armor, her winged helmet, blood red cape, and sword now matching what he had _thought _he had seen when a flash of steel had caused the Other to hesitate just as he had been about to wield the death blow. He could see into the great Hall of Valhalla, the feasting heroes, the music now an uplifting, martial theme that made his heart soar even though he had never heard it before, the light so brilliant and bright it nearly blinded him.

"Take care of my grandson for me," Peggy smiled as the light began to close around her. "The AllFather and I have a hefty wager riding on whether the boy will take after his father or his mother."

"What?" Steve called.

"Bernice is carrying your child."

Steve stood in his bare legs and chest, gaping as the light closed around her and then disappeared, leaving him standing alone in the dark. The reality of Peggy's words finally registered, the way Bernice had turned green when the Chitauri kids had devoured the truckload of pizza, her reluctance to eat once they had gotten back into the ship, the way she became dizzy whenever she sat upright too quick. All symptoms she had blamed on stress and having a metal ring drilled into her skull.

All symptoms of being pregnant…

It was with great elation he wove his way through the sleeping forms of his little brothers and sisters, onto the enormous raised bed, and slid under the covers next to her once more, touching her until she melted back into his body. He placed one hand over her flat abdomen, closing his eyes and imagining what it would be like to be a father. He would not tell her Peggy had visited him and spilled the beans … SHIELD would Section 8 him for sure … but would coax her to speak to Bruce about her symptoms first thing in the morning and urge Bruce to run a pregnancy test to confirm the news, which he was certain was the truth.

"Steve?" Bernice murmured his name.

"Yes, Sweetheart."

"Who were you talking to?"

Steve smiled.

"I was just talking in my sleep."

"I thought I heard heavenly music," Bernice mumbled. Already she was beginning to drift back to sleep.

"So did I," Steve whispered. "So did I."

**- THE END -**

X

_Note: I will be posting a one-chapter 'Epilogue' to this story in around a month or so. Thank you everyone for reading, especially those of you who left feedback along the way, both positive and negative. Your kind words and comments about when things could have been written better help make me a better writer. Thank you!_

_And as a little gift ... I have a FREEBIE for you ... my 100% original novel 'Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One' about the greatest superhero to ever walk the earth is available FREE in all e-reader formats and platforms except for Amazon (if you have a Kindle, go to to download your free .mobi file). Just go to whatever platform you usually download your e-books from (iTunes, Sony, Barnes & Noble Nook, Diesel, Smashwords) and search for Anna Erishkigal, Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One, ISBN# 9780985489601 and click 'download'. If you like it, please help me out by going back to give it a review from wherever you downloaded it (it's how indie authors make sales). Or ... hop over to Fanfic's sister site FictionPress under 'Fantasy' and search for the story there (I'm in the process of uploading it)._

X

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	84. Chapter 84

_**At last … the cute little epilogue I promised everybody! Merry Christmas!**_

X

X

**Epilogue**

**ONE YEAR LATER:**

"It's starting!" Gabriel Jones shouted.

"Shh!" Dum Dum Dugan grumbled, a stogie hanging out of his mouth. "How are we supposed to hear anything with Sweetcheeks making so much noise?"

"To whom do you refer to as these sweet cheeks?" a handsome, burly man with a heavy Norwegian accent growled. "Is it an endearment?"

"Don't get your pantyhose tied up in a knot, friend Baldur," Peggy Carter came up behind the usually good-natured Norse god and placed a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. "Your voice is so proud and strong it is drowning out the magic. We must be quiet."

"I care not for the affairs of Midgard," another Norseman, Sigurd, pounded his fist upon his chest plate armor. "Nor this magical device … Tell Vision. I have drink which desireth to flow!"

"Television," Gabriel Jones corrected. He ignored the glare Sigurd gave him and switched into the Norse language. "Friend Sigurd … we have all cast wagers upon Commander Rogers. We would be honored if thou would join our sport and cast a wager thyself?"

"The odds are running 67 to one," Jim Morita said. His Asiatic features were highlighted by the Moghul armor he had taken to wearing once inducted into Valhalla. "Are thou too cowardly to place a wager?"

"Sixty-eight to one," Frenchie corrected. "Steve Rogers, he is a hero, that is true. But his adversary … oui! I do not think he can defeat it this year."

"He has no motivation," Jim Morita said. "He has already _won_ the prize which inspired him to do battle _last _year. I have bet, friend Sigurd, that he will find an excuse to avoid engaging the enemy."

"Ah!" Sigurd slapped Jim on the back. "You speak highly of this Commander Rogers, and yet you bet against him?"

"You didn't see the look on his face _last_ year," Dum Dum Dugan laughed. He tugged at his uniform pants, a bit tighter than they had been on Earth from all the feasting, and sat down to stare at the television, chomping on his cigar.

"I am convinced," Sigurd said. "I wager use of Gram for one battle. If I am wrong, you can hack me to pieces."

Each morning after breakfast, all the heroes who had ever died battle hacked one another to second death to practice for the end of all worlds, Ragnarok. Come supper, the Valkyries would blow their horns and the spirits of the dead to pull their bodies back together (for the heroic dead took great pleasure in the fact they were already dead and a good dismemberment could do no lasting harm) and return to the great hall of Valhalla for an evening of drinking and feasting. Use of Gram, the sword Sigurd had used to slay Fafnir, would convey an advantage to whoever won the wager in the next day's battle.

Baldur, slain half-brother of Thor, stared at the magical device the Asgardians called Tell Vision.

"Tell me, friend Carter," Baldur asked. "Which way have you cast _your _vote?"

Peggy gave Baldur an enigmatic smile.

"She bet on Steve," Dum Dum Dugan twirled his moustache as he laughed. "She _always _bets on Steve Rogers."

Peggy took a long drag of her cigarette and thoughtfully exhaled.

"I seem to recall _you _all felt that way once, as well."

"Have you _seen _what that thing looks like this year?" Lieutenant Falsworth laughed. "Would _you _touch it?"

Just at that moment, the Tell Vision flashed to a preview of the villain in question, it's exterior seething as dark shapes lurked beneath the surface. An explosion of betting went on behind them as _other _heroes jumped in on the wager.

Peggy took a second drag, the knowing glint of her dark eyes her only answer.

"I shalt cast my wager with friend Carter," Baldur said. "The odds are now 68 to 2."

There was a ruckus while other heroes finished placing their wagers, several backing Peggy, who _was _a Valkyrie after all with _some _ability to foresee the future, the rest betting against Steve, swayed by the preview on the television. Gabriel Jones shouted for silence, having spent the afterlife learning every language that had ever been spoken, a continuation of his favorite hobby while he had still been alive.

"It is on, oui!" Frenchie shouted. "Now you all must be quiet so that we can hear. No?"

_"Today on Thirty-Six Alien Kids and Counting, we shall accompany the Rogers family as they attempt to navigate Christmas dinner at the Miller household…"_

X

"Bernice! Where's my black sweater?"

The cameraman moved in to highlight Squishie's goth-black sweater.

"It's Christmas dinner, Squishy," Bernice sighed. "Please! Couldn't you wear something a little more festive?"

"I am _not _wearing that ugly Christmas sweater Aunt Eidie made for me," Squishy gives the camera her most sullen expression. "It's _hideous_."

The camera zooms to a hand-knit Christmas sweater that is an exact replica of the one Bernice is wearing. The camera then pans to a frazzled looking Bernice Rogers. Baby Joseph is fussing as she bounces him upon one hip. Just that instant, baby Joseph spits up. In the background, Squishy snickers. No longer fussy, baby Joseph begins to coo and wraps his pukey fingers around his mother's long, dark hair, looking remarkably like his father.

"Do you mind?" Bernice shoos the cameraman. She turns back to Squishy. "If _you _dress like that, your 35 brothers and sisters are going to dress like that as well. We're going to Christmas dinner. Not a funeral."

"Your point is?" The now-teenage-in-appearance Squishy casts one hand on her hip and flips her other hand in an exaggerated gesture of 'whatever.' The cameraman zooms in on her hand.

"You're dressed like Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice," Bernice protests.

_The television cuts in a video clip of Lydia Deetz in an exaggerated black goth outfit aiming her camera up the steeple of a house her parents just bought and spying two ghosts staring out the window at her._

Squishy gives Bernice a wolfish grin, vying for alpha-female status. The camera cannot show whatever image Queen Bernice projects into her sister-in-law's stubborn little mind, but Squishy blanches. On either side of her, Eloradana and Galadriel giggle. The camera zooms in to the other female fairies wings humming together with laughter.

"Fine," Squishy hisses. _"_Everybody's going to make _fun _of me! My life is _ruined!" _Squishy starts to cry, and then bares her fangs and hisses at the cameraman when he gets too close. The camera backs off.

"I suddenly find myself in need of a clean sweater," Bernice said. "Why not wear that silver one you like and I'll wear yours?" Bernice points to the clock and claps her hands. "Girls! It's time to go! Elora … take Joseph for me, will you sweetie? Galadriel … grab the chips. Sorcia … use _potholders _when you take things out of the oven."

The camera pans around a room full of teenaged female fairies, all wearing identically hideous red Christmas sweaters with green elves and reindeer knit into them except for Squishy. The camera fades out.

X

"Commander Rogers, what is it like training all your little brothers and sisters to be super-soldiers?"

The camera zooms in on Steve Rogers, spotting his littlest brother, Snape, downstairs at a newly rebuilt Pankration, struggling to remain upright in an L-Sit on the still rings. All around the mat beneath him, a mixture of gossamer-winged and human boys, all wearing gang colors, root the skinny part-Chitauri on.

"Snape! Snape! Snape! Snape!"

"They're just kids," Steve said. "Kids need lots of physical activity, both structured and free time, to grow. The only way to keep them happy is to keep them busy."

The camera pans in to Snape swinging twice on the rings. Steve turns from the camera to spot his littlest brother as he does the Koste spinning dismount. Snape lands, feet together, and stands up for a perfect 'stick.' The other kids cheer.

"Way to go, Snape!" Lupe cheers, still wearing Dominican colors, which are now all the rage since they put down the alien invasion.

"Steve!" Bernice shouts down from the stair to the second story, the girls clamoring down the stairs. "You were supposed to load the boys into the bus! Not get them all sweaty. They need to look nice for pictures."

"What do you call _these_?" Steve flashes her a grin as he gestures to the cameras. "Besides, the boys were getting bored. When they get bored, they start vying for social position and fighting."

_'Vying for social position is an intricate part of full-blooded Chitauri culture,'_ a narrator voices over. _'With 36 of them in the litter … 37 including their brother's -own- human infant Joseph, chaos will ensue if the queen does not maintain order.'_

"Everybody … on the bus … now!" Bernice barks like a drill sergeant. "Snape … quit lagging behind. Squishy … stop making fun of Arwyn's Christmas sweater or I'm going to change my mind about telling Aunt Edie you were nice enough to loan me _your _sweater after Joseph spit up on it!"

"Fine!" Squishy gives a contemptuous roll of her eyes. The camera zooms in on her expression. Squishy sticks out her tongue at the camera and whirs her wings. She stares at her own reflection in the camera lense and starts fiddling with her hair.

"You heard Bernice!" Steve shouts. "Line 'em up! Eragon! Gandalf! Gimli! You're in the back! Legolas! Madmartigan! Make sure the others don't shove Snape out of his seat while we're driving!"

The Chitauri kids file or, in some instances fly, out the rear garage door of the gym into the enormous bus with the mural '36 Alien Kids and Counting' emblazoned down both sides of it with pictures of the Chitauri kids overlaid over a red, white and blue background. Outside the alley are freelance photographers and reporters, hoping to catch an exclusive comment. An aggressive reporter shoves a microphone into Steve's face.

"Doesn't bother you that The Learning Channel documents every moment of your life?" the reporter asks.

Steve pauses and flashes a grin at the camera, surprisingly at ease.

"You may recall I spent the first part of my career as Captain America selling war bonds during World War II," Steve said. "It was either lock the kids up in Area 51 so they could be watched in a fishbowl _there, _or raise them like normal kids."

"Some say we shouldn't trust the aliens," the reporter asked.

"People are entitled to their opinion," Steve said, his smile gone. "Listen … these are just kids. Part-human kids. And they're _my _little brothers and sisters. Nobody's going to lock them up in a fishbowl so long as I've got a breath left in my body. This lifestyle might be weird, but it lets people see that they're just ordinary kids."

"Except for the wings," the reporter said.

"Except for the wings," Steve said.

The camera cuts to the kids vying for who would get the seat closest to the back of the bus, which is the highest-ranking seat. Squishy is the last Chitauri on the bus, but she strolls down the aisle like she owns the place and stands over her three brothers.

"You two … buzz off," Squishy said. "This is _my _seat."

The two boys relinquish the seat without a word. Squishy sits down and pretends to start picking something out from underneath her fingernails, looking very much like the cat who swallowed a canary.

"I see your point," the reporter says. "What are you going to do when they start dating?"

Steve loses that comfortable expression he wore only moments before. He shoots Bernice a trapped look.

"Uh … for that you'd better speak to the boss."

Steve holds out his arm. Bernice slides into his side and wraps her arms around his waist and gives him a reassuring smile. Steve kisses the top of her head before herding the Chitauri kids … and Lupe who has been living with them ever since his big brother Vasquez joined the Army … into their seats and climbs into the driver's seat. Bernice leads them in a round of Christmas carols as the bus rolls across lower Manhattan, through the Holland tunnel to the Jersey Turnpike.

X

"Here it comes … here it comes … here it comes!" the Howling Commandos' chant from their perch in Valhalla.

X

_"We are at the house of Abraham Miller, Bernice's great-uncle and son of the woman who originally worked with Commander Rogers back in World War II, Peggy Carter."_

"Girls! Bring in that food!" Bernice shouts. "And you'd better not eat it before Aunt Eidie serves Christmas dinner!"

The camera pans on the girls rustling the bags of chips, snacks and boxes of food they are carrying in from the bus.

_"For those of you who've watched the show, the alien kids have … how shall we put this delicately … robust appetites."_

The television inserts a scene from one of the earliest episodes last year where the kids raided an eighteen wheeler full of frozen Tyson chicken dinners and ate everything in the truck … including the cardboard boxes the frozen dinners had come in.

Over the hustle and bustle of 36 kids … plus two adults … plus a cooing baby … plus one gang kid … plus three cameramen … the sound of thunder rents the heavens. Thor plunks down onto the earth, Mjolnir in his grip.

_"The God of Thunder has just arrived…' _the narrator says.

"Thor!" Steve greets. "Isn't Jane coming?"

"Fair Jane hosts dinner back in New Mexico," Thor grinned. "I come merely to wish thee all a joyous holiday and oversee the AllFather's wager."

"Wager?" Steve asked. His brow wrinkled in confusion. "What wager?"

"It be nothing, friend Rogers," Thor slapped him on the back. "Come … thy family awaits."

The camera pans in on the Chitauri kids disappearing into the already overcrowded house. Abraham Miller and his wife welcome everyone by name as they file in, including the three cameramen. Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Cliff Barton greet Steve as he herds the boys into the living room, where the Miller clan and Avengers are cheering on a New York Knicks v. Los Angeles Lakers basketball game. So engrossed in the game are they that the inclusion of the Chitauri kids barely registers.

_"As you can see," _the narrator says, _"the Queen's family views the inclusion of the alien children at holiday functions no differently than they view the children of any other family member. In fact, the aliens fit right in."_

The girl fairies … and Snape … gather into little clusters of gossip-girls, while the boys move closer to the large screen television to watch the game. Steve moves to talk with the other Avengers, speaking in a type of shorthand language designed to _not _clue in the audience talking to them what they're talking about. Natasha Romanov approaches the cameraman.

"You going to get a close up?" Natasha gives the cameraman a conspiratorial wink.

"I'm an old-style journalist," the cameraman in question says. "If there's going to be breaking news, you can be sure I will be on it."

Natasha laughs. She spots the perplexed look on Bernice's face and laughs harder.

"Bernice! Aunt Eidie sent me out to look for you. Everything is set to go. As soon as it's half-time, she'll serve dinner."

As Bernice moves in to help her Aunt set the table, the camera pans to where Squishy and Eloradana are clustered in a corner with Bernice's younger sister Naomi. Naomi glances up at the camera and smiles, looking remarkably like Bernice.

_'As you can see, the Chitauri kids have matured to be close in age to Bernice's little sister,' _the narrator says. _'Naomi is just that little bit older that she is often able to sway the strong-willed future queen, Squishy, without resorting to an act of will. This peer-seeking-guidance-from-peer relationship is strongly encouraged by the Rogers as it is a level of social interaction full-blooded Chitauri lack.'_

The Los Angeles Lakers score a basket. The buzzer sounds. The entire Miller clan groans except for Tony Stark, who is a Lakers fan.

"Dinner is served," Aunt Eidie shouts from the dining room. It is difficult to tell the regular, human dinner guests, plus one Asgardian, shoving their way to the table to stuff their faces, from the Chitauri kids, whose appetites are voracious.

"This looks wonderful, Aunt Eidie," Steve compliments his aunt-in-law. He piles his plate high with ham and side dishes. There is a bit of a competition between him and Thor to see which superhero can eat the most, but the unassuming Bruce Banner piles his plate the highest, and eats it without once rubbing his stomach.

Natasha Romanov glances at the camera and winks.

_'Here it comes…' _the narrator says.

"Don't forget the green bean casserole!" Aunt Edie says in a cheerful voice. "Bernice made it again this year herself! Doesn't it look delicious?"

The camera zooms in on Steve's face, his look of carefully disguised horror as he spots the dish hastily thrown together this year by his frazzled, overworked wife. The camera zooms closer, taking a great shot of Captain America's Adams Apple shifting in his throat as he gulps.

_'Tony Stark wagered the AllFather a million gold coins that this year, Steve Rogers would balk at eating his wife's green bean casserole,' _the narrator said into the camera. _'Remember that The Learning Channel brought it to you first … the first pan-galactic wager between a titan of industry and a Norse god.'_

"I remember how much you said you enjoyed this last year," Natasha said. "Here … let me help you." Natasha scooped an enormous, double-scoopful onto Steve's plate.

Steve got a trapped look on his face, that same look the cameras had captured the day Tony Stark had shouted 'I'm bringing the party to you' and then led an enormous, armor-clad space whale straight for the Avengers.

"Sh-sh-shouldn't you serve smaller helpings so somebody else can have a share?" Steve stammered.

"I baked three of them this year so there would be plenty to go around," Bernice smiled at him. "I know how much you loved it last year."

Aunt Eidie brought out the other two casseroles and strategically placed one at the other end of the adult table, the other on the kids table. Behind her, Naomi snickered and scooped small spoonfuls onto each and every kids plate, just a teaspoonful so the kids could claim they had eaten some, but not so much it couldn't be buried underneath mashed potatoes.

Squishy took one bite and hissed. As the camera zoomed in, she followed Naomi's to casually pretend to dab her mouth with a napkin, and then scoop the spoonful of offending casserole into that napkin as she pretended to put it down to pick up her fork, a practiced maneuver Naomi appeared to be quite adept at.

_'I don't believe this,' _the narrator said. _'This is the first time in the year I've been following these kids on live television that I've ever seen them refuse to eat something!'_

"Yumbo!" Tony Stark grinned across the table, his dark goatee, burgundy designer shirt and mischievous black eyes giving him the appearance of the devil. He held up a forkful of the casserole, soggy green beans dangling from the shapeless white mass like body parts in the film Soylent Green.

Steve's skin turned visibly paler.

Bernice stared across the table at her husband, her eyes filled with trust and adoration as she lifted her fork and took a bite. "I made extra just for you."

The camera zoomed closer, so close that there was no way even _his _super-reflexes could hide the offending casserole.

He lifted the fork.

He held it in front of his mouth.

His brow wrinkled as absolutely _no _sound of breathing came from his mouth.

He stuck the fork in his mouth.

He grimaced.

His Adam's apple jerked reflexively as the taste hit his tastebuds.

He gave his wife a look that communicated, 'I want you to know how much I love you to eat something like this…'

Steve swallowed the green bean casserole.

The Miller clan cheered. Both Bernice and Steve looked up and down the table, not understanding what had just transpired.

_'Ladies and gentlemen … remember that you saw it live here first,' _the narrator said. _'Human nature has just beat out the judgment of gods to wager that Commander Rogers would prevail on this latest threat.'_

"Eat some more!" Natasha urged, pointing to the heaps that still remained on her plate.

Steve shot the red-headed assassin an 'I'm going to kill you later' look.

Just then the doorbell rang. The camera panned to a commotion at the door. In came Shapeshifter Fred, wheeling a wheelchair with Real Fred, flanked on either side by two S.H.I.E.L.D. security guards.

"Fred!" Bernice greeted. "I'm glad you could make it!"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. granted me temporary parole," Shapeshifter Fred said. "At least long enough to stop by and visit my nieces and nephews." He rolled Real Fred, who looked remarkably vigorous for a man who'd spent 50 years in a cryo-chamber, to a place at the table. Clean plates and heaps of food appeared for both guests and their guards. The camera panned between the two Fred's, the real one and the fake one, who had become the best of friends since helping defeat the Other's invasion.

"Perfect timing," Bernice said.

"Ah!" Shapeshifter Fred grinned. "But didn't you promise me I would get to try this delicacy you make just for special occasions? What was it called again?"

"Green Bean Casserole," Real Fred finished the thought. "The casserole is empty."

"I'm disappointed," Shapeshifter Fred said. "I was really looking forward to it."

"Commander Rogers just took a large helping, not saving any for the rest of us," Tony Stark cut in. "He has barely touched it yet. Perhaps he would be willing to share?"

Tony shot Steve an impish 'you owe me big time' look.

"Y-ya … sure." Steve said. The camera rolled in on his look of relief as he scooped the offending substance off of his plate.

"Bon Appetit!" Real Fred said as the two Freds dug into the casserole and devoured it.

The Nicks v. Lakers game came back on the television. With a shout, the entire extended Miller clan arose from the table and rushed back into the television room to finish watching the game. Bernice came across the table and sat upon Steve's lap. The camera was still rolling, but cameras had become such a part of the Rogers family lives this past year that, just for a moment, they forgot it was there.

"I was afraid you wouldn't like it this year," Bernice saod. "With the new baby and the Chitauri kids, it was all I could do to open a can of mushroom soup and dump it into a dish."

Steve wrapped his fingers in Bernice's hair and pulled her face down to his in a hungry kiss, relishing the sudden absence of the baby, who was being passed around from relative to relative at the moment, leaving Bernice's arms free. He loved his son, but he loved a little quality time with his wife as well. The cameraman had the decency not to narrate at this moment and spoil the mood.

"As long as I have _you,_" Steve whispered to his wife, "I have everything I will ever need."

The camera faded out.

X

"Aww … damn!" Dum Dum Dugan cussed up in Valhalla.

Sigfrud handed his sword, Grim, to Baldruc for tomorrows mock battle. He was in for some hurting and he knew it.

"I guess the AllFather won," Gabriel Jones said.

"The AllFather, I do not think he wagered _for _CaptainRogers," Frenchie said.

"Did you see the look on my son's face?" Howard Stark said. "He _won _that bet. Not lost it. That's my boy!"

X

"I thought you weren't supposed to interfere, love," William Miller came up behind his wife, still resplendent in her Valkyrie battle armor, and snaked his arms around her waist. He peeked into the _same _window that Peggy looked into, the window into their mutual family enjoying their Christmas gathering.

"It wasn't interference, per se," Peggy's shot her husband a wolfish grin as he nuzzled her neck. "The wager was that he would _eat _our granddaughter's green bean casserole. Not devour an entire plate of it."

"I bet against him, you know," William said.

"I know," Peggy smiled. "So did the AllFather. He promised Tony Stark a trip to Asgard if he won."

They watched in silence as snowflakes fell.

"Who arranged for the two Freds to make their timely arrival?" William asked.

"Let's just say a little bee whispered a little something into Tony Stark's ear while he was sleeping and open to hearing whispers from heaven," Peggy said. "He did all the rest."

Through the light streaming through the window, they watched their descendants open presents and share good times with the thing that mattered most in the world … family. Peggy leaned into her husband's tall, thin frame, soaking up his warmth even though technically neither one of them needed that kind of thing anymore. As they watched, the cameraman moved away, leaving Bernice and Steve with some peace and quiet.

"Merry Christmas," William Miller kissed his wife.

"Merry Christmas," Peggy said. She turned to where the cameraman had come outside for a cigarette, his camera still rolling in their direction even though no mortal could see either she or her husband standing in front of the window. It was not to a human audience she spoke to next, but the otherworldly one watching avidly from the realm beyond.

"And Merry Christmas to all of you who turned in for this little story," Peggy smiled. "And to all a goodnight."

X

_As I promised … a cute little epilogue for this story to let you know how everything turned out. I sometimes watch 'Meet the Duggars' with morbid fascination and could not help but ask myself, what would it be like to follow 36 shapeshifting alien kids around with a camera all day long? This kind of writing, a quasi-screen-shot narration as though it were being passively watched through the television instead of getting into my characters heads, Is different from what I usually write. I hope it didn't come across as too clunky!_

_So here is my little holiday gift to all my readers! I hope you all had a happy holiday!_

_And don't forget the FREEBIE ... my 100% original novel 'Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One' about the greatest superhero to ever walk the earth is available FREE in all e-reader formats and platforms except for Amazon (if you have a Kindle, go to to download your free .mobi file). Just go to whatever platform you usually download your e-books from (iTunes, Sony, Barnes & Noble Nook, Diesel, Smashwords) and search for Anna Erishkigal, Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One, ISBN# 9780985489601 and click 'download'. If you like it, please help me out by going back to give it a review from wherever you downloaded it (it's how indie authors make sales). Or ... hop over to Fanfic's sister site FictionPress under 'Fantasy' and search for the story there (I'm in the process of uploading it)._

_**Happy unadulterated superhero-worship ;-)  
**_


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